


Brotherhood Legal

by Kicker



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Flashbacks, Jealousy, Not Canon Compliant, Smoking, Smut, Spoilers, felix ex machina, lawyer!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 72,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6997813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kicker/pseuds/Kicker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighteen months ago, the Brotherhood of Steel moved into the Commonwealth, building a monstrosity of glass and steel on the site of a disused airport. Their primary purpose was to shut down the Institute, a shady corporation with links to experimental and dangerous cybernetics.</p><p>A few months before that, Nate Adams was murdered. His widow, Grace, dedicated herself to avenging his death, eventually tracing the source of the hit back to that very same shady corporation.</p><p>The Institute is far too big for one woman to take on alone. The Brotherhood is too tied up in procedure and bureaucracy to take them on directly. It seems like a match made in heaven.</p><p>They're all going to get a lot more out of it than they were expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on the Lawyer x ProblematicClient!AU proposed by [dyr0z](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dyr0z/pseuds/dyr0z). With a twist, of course. It wouldn't be me, otherwise. ;)
> 
> I've taken a lot of liberties with canon. I'm also missing some fairly major characters so I'll check under the sofa and see if I can find them.
> 
> PS also I _may_ have bitten off more than I can chew, and updates may be sporadic. Sorry. Come harass me on [tumblr](https://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/) if you really need a hit, I might just need encouragement.
> 
> PPS formerly known as 'Commonwealth Legal' - name changed because I discovered that there was a company called that and felt a bit weird.

It's May 22, 3:42am. Arthur Maxson and Grace Adams are side-by-side on the opposite side of a table from a police officer who's asking unfortunate questions.

Again.

Arthur runs a hand through his hair, and takes in a deep breath. He's barely slept at all, and the alcohol from the night before is starting to buzz angrily through his veins. The first hints of pain stab at the back of his eyes. The smell of the room isn't helping. New plastic furniture mixed with stale coffee, stale cigarettes, and stale humans.

He doesn't quite dare look at her. He doesn't want to see the look on her face. He doesn't need to, because he knows exactly what it'll be. He's seen it enough times, now. Her hand is resting on the table when the officer starts to list the charges. For each one, she taps a finger, as though she's counting.

Identity theft, in order to obtain unlawful entry to a private event at the Rexford. Three counts of regular theft; item 1, a military jacket from one of the hotel rooms. Item 2, a bottle of Russian liqueur from the bar. Item 3, a sack of fruit from the kitchen. Several counts of disorderly conduct. Vandalism. Indecent exposure.

Quite a list. Quite a night.

"I know the drill," says the officer. "I'll let you two confer, I'll come back, you'll say 'no comment' and I'll have to let you go. So here. Enjoy. It's a good read. Lots of pictures." He pushes a folder across the table, and scrapes his chair back across the floor.

Arthur winces at the sound.

The folder is thick enough that it could contain multiple incidents. It doesn't. Like the officer said, there's photographic evidence this time. Lots of it. Really a lot of it.

It's fine. They'll get around it. They always do.

He winces again when the door slams behind the officer, and finally risks a look at Grace.

Her hair is slightly dishevelled, but still shines under the fluorescent lighting of the interview room. She has dark circles under her eyes, but the lines of her makeup are crisp and her lipstick is perfect, as always. She levels a steady stare back at him. Cool and collected.

"Well?" she says.

"What now?" he asks.

"I don't know," she says. "You're the lawyer."

She looks away, then, and starts inspecting her nails. As her neck catches the light, he sees a light pattern of bruises running up toward her ear, as though someone has been biting her in the throes of passion. A few days ago, perhaps.

Pushing aside the memory and dismissing the guilty thrill of it with an angry sigh, he opens the folder and starts leafing through. The officer is right; he'll let her walk out. They always do.

It will still fall to Arthur to do the paperwork.

"We're springing Hancock too," she says.

He closes his eyes, having reached a particularly lurid photograph.

"That's not part of our arrangement," he says, but before he's finished talking, she grabs his arm and fixes him with the eyes he can never quite resist.

"We are springing Hancock too," she repeats, slowly.

 

* * *

 

Outside the police station, Hancock stands proud. He lifts his arms in the air, and takes a deep breath through his nose.

"Smell that?" he says. "Smells like freedom, don't it."

Grace produces a hipflask from somewhere about her person and hands it to him. "We were only in there for a couple of hours," she says. "Besides, I thought you had anosmia."

Hancock turns his watery black eyes on Grace as he grabs the flask. "It's metaphorical, ain't it," he says. "What does it smell like, then?"

She lifts her nose into the air. "Gasoline and cigarettes. Not the best combination."

"It's time to go," says Arthur, beyond irritated. "Come on."

"You're hot," says Hancock, his voice a little slurred. "Say Grace, have ya noticed how hot he is? You should fuck him."

"John," says Grace, a warning note in her voice.

"Oh," says Hancock, grinning. "Did I say that out loud? I meant to."

Arthur stands perfectly still, his hands clasped behind his back. He tries to stop the anger from showing on his face. Waves of tension are rolling across his forehead. He's probably not doing a very good job of concealing it.

"Get in the car," he says.

"And masterful," says Hancock. "That's hot, too." He's patting his pockets with a frown. Somehow he's managed to keep a hold of the stolen military jacket. "You got any smokes?"

"Yeah," says Grace. "But you can't have one. Arthur doesn't like it when people smoke in his car." She pushes Hancock into the back seat.

"Arthur doesn't like a lot of things, does he," he says.

"Shut up, John," says Grace. Her tone is firm, but sweet. She's laughing at him. She takes back the flask and takes a swig from it before tucking it into her purse.

Arthur waits for her to join Hancock on the back seat, then counts to five before entering the vehicle himself.

For most of the journey Hancock is silent or whispering in Grace's ear. That is, except for the occasional phrase he says loud enough for Arthur to hear. 'God-damned lawyer', for one. 'Ass you could bounce a dime off', for another. Each time, she hushes him, and each time, the bastard laughs like a drain and apologizes just as insincerely as the last.

Luckily, the streets are clear, as they tend to be at four in the fucking morning, and they reach his drop-off in barely any time at all.

"Seeya, sunshine," says Hancock, as he steps out onto the sidewalk. "Call me up next time you need a little rest and relaxation."

After the door slams, silence falls, except for the rumbling of the road and ticking of indicators. Her house is further to the north. Even at this time of the morning it's a good twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to try to stop himself from talking to her.

He lasts about three.

"You can thank me whenever you like," he says.

"I did thank you," she says. "Just after you arrived. You rubbed the bridge of your nose and glared at me. That's usually 'you're welcome', isn't it?"

"For god's sake, Grace," he says.

"Lighten up, Arthur," she says. "It was an accident."

"The rap sheet was as long as my arm," he says. "That's a lot of accidents."

She doesn't reply.

"You're supposed to be infiltrating the Institute, not a god-damned Officers' Club party," he says.

"What if it was related?" she replies, her voice infuriatingly calm.

He grips the steering wheel tightly. "Was it?"

She doesn't reply.

Next time he pulls up at a stop sign he looks over his shoulder at her. She's looking down at her phone, flicking through screens.

"You're in danger of jeopardising the project," he says. "I can't let that happen. We've come too far."

She locks the phone and looks right at him. "Arthur," she says, "I'm still drunk, and you've got a headache. Now is not the time for this conversation."

How she knows he has a headache is beyond him.

"Tell you what," she continues. "I'll come to your office tomorrow. Well, later. I'll bring coffees, a couple of pastries, and you can berate me to your heart's content. You can give me a real good dressing down."

He turns back to face the road. Because that, of course, is how it all started.

 

* * *

 

Three months before, she'd slammed into his office with a stack of files and a black eye. She dropped them on his desk from an unnecessary height, and sat herself down in his chair.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Information," she said. "Read it, you might like it. Lots of pictures."

He was hard-pressed to think of a single meeting they'd had in which she hadn't managed to refer to his age, subtly or otherwise. He rubbed the bridge of his nose to try to collect his thoughts.

"Summarize for me," he said. "If it's not too much trouble."

"Maps, plans, and schematics," she said, leaning back in the chair with a faint look of discomfort. The eye wasn't the only injury she'd sustained. "All I need to get into the Institute. Then tap-tap-tap on the keyboard, letters flying across the screen faster than you can read them, 3D graphical representations of mainframes bursting into flame."

She started waggling her fingers in the air as though she were typing, then stopped. Lowering her voice, she spoke again. "I'm in."

He should have been pleased. He should have been ecstatic, in fact, this was the culmination of months of work, sitting on his desk in the form of a half dozen dark grey folders. But he wasn't. Because he knew how she did it. He looked back out of the window. A helicopter drifted silently over the city skyline.

"I'm not happy with your methods," he said. "Your sources are problematic and that brings our credibility into question. And I am tired of having to tidy up the messes you leave."

"Sure, focus on the negatives," she said. "You can't just be grateful, can you? Hey, thanks, Grace, for risking your ass to get this information. Sure you had to go against a whole number of deeply-held principles to get hold of it but whatever."

Somewhat surprised by her tone, he turned away from the window. It was rare for her to speak so heatedly. Perhaps she was finally understanding the importance of the project. But she appeared perfectly calm. Sat in his chair, her elbow resting on the desk, her fingers tapping slowly on the uppermost folder.

Principles were one thing. This was quite another.

"Murder, Grace?" he said. "Really?"

She kept tapping her fingers, the sound an irritating addition to an already infuriating situation. "You know," she said, "when I was studying law, I was told never to actually ask the client that question."

If she thought that a half-finished degree from ten years before that she'd never even used in practice would impress him, she could think again. "That was a while ago," he said. "Things have changed a little since then."

Her mouth fell a little open in surprise.

That was another unexpected reaction.

He only wished she didn't look like she'd enjoyed it.

"Might I remind you," she said, "that I didn't have to come to you at all. Everyone wants the Institute gone. I could have taken this information to any number of groups in the Commonwealth. In fact, I could do that right now, if you don't want it."

"I'd like to see you get it out of the building," he snapped.

She smiled, then, a slow, wide smile. "You think this is the only copy? I may be a fossil but I know the importance of backups. You know. Redundancy."

"Have you given this information to anyone else?" he said, taking a couple of steps toward her before he had a chance to stop himself.

She stood and matched his movements, two quick steps that brought her within a couple of feet of him. In her scuffed, flat shoes she was a few inches shorter than he was, and had to look up to meet his eyes. Sometimes it felt like that was the only advantage he had over her. She was the only person who would dare to talk to him like that. Certainly within the Brotherhood. Perhaps even the Commonwealth. Who else would walk in the front door of the Prydwen Building and demand a job, based on a personal mission of revenge?

"No," she said. "I haven't. But don't tempt me."

And who would be enough of an idiot to hire her?

She reached out her hand and took a hold of his tie, running her fingers down the length of it. Half-way down, she let go, and the release of tension on the fabric made him realise she'd been pulling him toward her. And he'd been letting her.

"Really," she said, without breaking eye contact. "Don't."

 

* * *

 

He tightens his grip on the steering wheel. His head is drooping, his eyes starting to drift closed. He's going to fall asleep at the wheel, at this rate. He reaches out and stabs at the air con. Cold air will make him feel better.

Classical music blasts out of the speakers all around the car.

"Ride of the Valkyries," she says. "Nice. Are we going into battle? I'd have worn a suit of armor if I'd known."

"Will you just stop?" he says, stabbing at the radio. Cold air breezes over his face, full of dust and coolant.

"Okay," she says. "Sorry." She leans forward and touches his shoulder, a gentle squeeze that means she really is.

He shrugs off her hand, still irritated despite her conciliatory gesture, and finally turns the radio off. He still can't stop himself talking, though.

"I assigned you a security detail for a reason," he says.

She shifts in her seat, her reflection drifting in and out of the rear view mirror. "Sure you did," she says. "Gotta keep an eye on your assets. Make sure they're not off having fun without you."

"It's more than that," he says. "It's dangerous. You know full well what the Institute can do."

The silence feels a little louder, all of a sudden. He shouldn't have said that, but goddamnit. At this time of the morning, and with that folder on the passenger seat, he should be able to say what he wants.

"They're machines," he says. "If they decide to come after you, you won't be able to stop them. You have to stop drawing attention to yourself like this."

"Arthur," she says, "on Monday morning I am going to walk in their front door and demand a job. You can't get much more attention-drawing than that."

He couldn't deny it. He'd experienced it in person.

"I just wanted to have a little fun, you know?" she continued. "Just in case. Tell you what, next time I'll invite you. Hancock can put a smile on anyone's face."

That shuts him up, right until he pulls up in front of her driveway. When she gets out, she shuts the door carefully, and walks around the front of the car. It's entirely unnecessary, it would be faster to go around the back. But it wouldn't be Grace if she weren't forcing him to pay attention to her. Accordingly, she stands by his window, waiting for him to roll it down.

He counts to five before doing it.

"Thanks, Arthur," she says. "Really."

She leans into the car and drops a kiss onto his cheek. He flinches away, just a little, but just enough for her to notice. She taps her fingers on the window bed, and retreats.

He doesn't look back as he drives away. He doesn't turn around in the street, either, which would be quicker. He just needs to get away, away from her, try to regain some kind of semblance of control. But she doesn't stop weighing on his mind. The folder keeps catching his eye. A few minor misdemeanors were admittedly better than her previous antics, far easier to sweep those under the carpet than another dead body. Lucky so far that her murderous urges had been restricted to the Institute's heavies. Nobody cares if they turn up dead. And the last time, they'd taken care of the evidence long before the Brotherhood sweep team had arrived at Greenetech.

But that in itself was a bad sign. They knew she was coming.

He looks at the clock, feeling no less irritable without her in the car. Nearly five am. No point going home now. He should read through that file, make sure there are no other loose ends to tie up. Maybe do a little research on that asshole Hancock, too, make sure there are no skeletons in his closet getting ready to burst out.

Arriving at the Prydwen Building, he parks up and takes the express elevator so he doesn't have to see anyone. Back in his office, he heads to stand in front of the window, his usual spot. The sky is already starting to glow with the dawn, the windows of the city's office buildings still dark. For a little while, he can pretend he's the only man left alive.

That would make his life so much easier.

He drops down into his chair and rubs the bridge of his nose. He pulls open the folder, and starts to read.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter already posted on [tumblr](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/post/144848120540/commonwealth-legal). Chapter 2 to follow shortly.


	2. Chapter 2

On 23rd October, almost seventeen months ago, Grace Adams' world ended.

Well. That's how you might put it if she were the star of some schlocky romance novel. If that were the case, after a suitable period of mourning, someone would have come along, a tall handsome stranger perhaps, to sweep her off her feet.

It didn't happen quite like that.

It did suck to begin with. And there was a handsome stranger. More than one of them, in fact.

But we'll get to that later.

On that day, she came home from work, like any other day. She stamped the mud from her feet, opened the front door, and found her husband arguing with a man she'd never seen before. He was tall, shaven-headed, and wore a dark leather jacket.

"That shit in your head," he was saying, "as you so eloquently put it, is Institute property. You don't get to just walk away."

"What the hell is going on here?" she asked.

When he turned around, she saw the scar down the left-hand side of his face, right over his eye. That and the gun in his hand, pointed directly at Nate.

"This is her, huh?" he said, looking her up and down.

"Nate," she said, ignoring him. "What's this about?"

Nate didn't reply. He was frozen to the spot, staring at the gun.

"What did he mean, the shit in your head?" she continued.

He still said nothing, but did react to her presence, his eyes flicking away from the gun to look into hers. The expression on his face was pleading, _don't ask, please don't ask_ , it said. It was the expression he used whenever she asked about his work.

She hated the fucking military. Not a month, barely a week went by that she didn't ask herself how she'd ended up with a fucking soldier. Every time, she consoled herself with the thought that at least he wasn't a lawyer.

Irony, huh?

"It's highly classified, sweetheart," said the man with the gun. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"Please, Kellogg," said Nate. "Don't hurt her."

_Kellogg_.

She looked the man in the eyes and committed his name and face to memory.

He saw her do it.

"Relax, Adams," said Kellogg, speaking out of the side of his mouth, not breaking eye contact. His voice was far softer and more agreeable than it had any right to be. "She's safe. She's got a fan."

Her scalp prickled. It didn't make sense. None of it made any sense. "What the fuck are you talking about?" she asked.

"Stop asking questions, honey," said Nate. "Please."

If there was one thing Grace Adams would never stop doing, not while she still had breath in her lungs and blood in her veins, it was asking questions. He should have known that.

Maybe he did.

"Look, I don't have time for this," said Kellogg. "You know how this has to end."

"I don't know anything of the sort," she said. But she could guess. Through the whole exchange, his gun hadn't wavered. He hadn't taken his attention off Nate, off either of them. He was a professional.

"I wasn't talking to you," he said. "But now I am. You need to leave. Now."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. If she could keep his attention for long enough, maybe something would happen. A surprise sales rep, a dog loose in the back garden, the end of the world, maybe.

"Honey," said Nate, his expression calm. Stoic Nate. Always facing up to the hard decisions, like she wasn't able to. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay. We'll just be a minute."

At least one of those statements was a lie. Maybe all of them.

"Listen to him," said Kellogg. "Walk away. You still have that option. Take it."

Even with both of them urging her to leave, it felt like a betrayal. It probably was.

"I love you," said Nate, with a gentle smile.

"I love you too," she said.

She stepped back out into the cold, Kellogg's low voice following her out. _You don't know how lucky you are_. It repeated in her mind until behind her, a single gunshot rang out. Her vision swam, and her legs felt weak. But she kept walking, down the driveway, past the car, and onto the sidewalk. As the doors of the unmarked truck swung open, she was already halfway to unconsciousness.

Kellogg, she thought, as the world faded away. You have no idea how unlucky _you_ are.

 

* * *

 

She stands on the same sidewalk now. Maxson's car disappears into the pre-dawn gloom, heading in the wrong direction for the office or his apartment, but he often does that when he drops her off. Almost as though he doesn't want to look at her.

She makes sure that he's well out of sight before dropping down to unbuckle her high heels to step out of them. While she's down there, a piece of paper flutters out of her hand and into the gutter.

She winds the straps of her shoes around her fingers, and messes up her hair a little. She considers taking another swig of whiskey, just to complete the image, but it must be nearly five o'clock. It's late, sure, but late enough to be early. She needs to be able to function tomorrow. Today.

She'd kill for a coffee, though.

She walks slowly up the driveway, the concrete cool under her stocking-clad feet. By midday, if the sky stays as clear as it is now, it'll be scorching hot. Hot enough to cook eggs on. That would be a waste, of course. Didn't stop people trying it, every time it hit that bar on the thermometer.

Key in the door, push it open, make sure the handle hits against the wall. Drop the shoes with a clatter, push the door closed too slowly so it doesn't latch, kick it with the back of a heel. Reach out and smack at the lightswitch a couple of times. Bit of gentle cursing, too, for good measure.

A door opens further within the house. Then another. And here he is, in the hallway, glaring at her. Frowning. Glowering. Any number of words that indicate an expression of hatred. Well. Not quite that bad. His eyes are too naturally warm for that. But judging by the furrowed brow and tightly-pressed lips, she's definitely moved a notch further toward the 'disliked' end of the scale.

It's probably easier that way.

She smiles, tips her head to one side. "Hey, Danse," she says. "Did I wake you?"

"No," he says. "Maxson did, when he called me to ask why the hell I wasn't with you."

She giggles, starting to annoy herself. Grace, she thinks, you're pushing your luck. Dial it down a little.

Danse is your standard-issue bodyguard. Tall. Heavy. Bad-tempered. Poured into a suit that's not exactly straining at the seams, it's a good enough cut, but it certainly doesn't look natural on him. There's just something not right about it. She decides, here in the hallway at 5 am, which is about the best time to make any arbitrary judgements, that it's the tie. She likes a person in a suit and tie, she can't deny that. Not much better an end or start to an evening than reaching up to loosen the knot, pulling it from their neck, silken material slipping against the fabric of their shirt.

And Nate had always liked it when she'd gone on to loop it around his wrists with an unhurried smile.

She suspects that Danse would be less impressed with that particular move.

Several people would be less than impressed.

She scratches her ear. "I need a coffee," she says, and brushes past him, heading toward the kitchen.

It was definitely the tie. It hugged too tightly around his neck, made him look too straight-laced, added to the impression that he was uncomfortable in his own skin. It couldn't be comfortable, either. Day-to-day, it was probably fine, but in a combat situation, you don't want anything tight around your neck. You don't want anything hanging loose, able to be grabbed. He should take it off, and undo that top button while he's at it. Hell, he should take off the jacket altogether, roll up his shirt-sleeves...

She shakes her head, before the vision goes too far. Maybe she's more drunk than she thought. She drags the kettle off the stove to fill it, makes sure she splashes just enough water around.

And yes. There he is, right behind her. Come to save her from herself.

He takes the kettle, and gives her a fixed look. "Are you sure drinking coffee at this hour is wise?" he says.

She breathes in his aftershave. "Hundred per cent" she says, faintly.

He doesn't look convinced, but he continues her task for her.

The pattern was all wrong, too. Not just the stripes, which are far too financial-services for someone in the business of smashing skulls. It's the logo, that white-and-blue pattern of gear, sword, and wings. She'd laughed when she saw it going up on the brand new Prydwen Building. Everyone had. They all knew by then that the building belonged to a branch of a multinational law firm. Then that logo went up, and people weren't just smirking at the thought that the Commonwealth needed any more goddamned lawyers.

She watches Danse as walks around her kitchen, retrieving coffee-making equipment from cupboards like he does it every day. He does. It's not his job, not at all, but he seems to enjoy it. There's something he does when making a pot of coffee, a swirl of the grounds, a flick of the wrist that just makes a coffee far nicer than she's ever been able to make herself.

She sits at her kitchen table, her chin in her hand, and wonders where he learned it.

After a little while, he stops clattering around and pushes a half-filled mug across the table toward her. She wraps her fingers around it, or at least around the top of it, where it won't burn her.

He sits down opposite, and looks at her.

It's time for her debriefing.

It's not Maxson's angry, confrontational style. What did you do. How did it happen. Why did you think it was a good idea. That's angry and defensive, and she can deal with that because she knows her own weaknesses, and she's not afraid to use them against others.

But Danse? He always wants to know what _he's_ done wrong.

And the answer's almost always nothing.

"I didn't hear you leave," he says.

She rests her nose over the mug, inhaling the steam, feeling the heat of it on her face. "I put on my ninja costume and shimmied out of the window."

He frowns a little more. Now he's offended, too.

"Okay," she says. "I waited until you went in the shower, then I went out the front door. Tip-tap in my high heels, all the way to the waiting taxi."

It wasn't entirely true. She'd had her shoes in her hand when she left, too, to make sure he didn't hear. And the taxi was Hancock's bike.

Come to think of it, where had that ended up?

Whatever. Wouldn't be the first time they'd lost a vehicle. There was a reason her driveway was empty. She just wishes she could remember the details.

He's clutching his own mug like it's life. She's already pissed him off too much. So she decides to come clean. Reasonably clean, anyway.

"I went to Goodneighbor, met a couple of friends. We had some drinks and things happened."

"Were you doing chems?" he asks, seriously.

That's the natural assumption with Goodneighbor. She still bristles at it. If you don't go there, if you just hear the stories, you'd probably think nothing else happens there at all. Why would you go to Goodneighbor, if not to get a skinful of chems?

Why indeed.

She looks blankly at him. "You plural, or you singular?"

Honestly, if she were him she'd have punched her in the face by now. Except, of course, she wouldn't, because then she'd be him and a much nicer person who wouldn't do that kind of thing.

She wonders what it's like, to be like that.

His gaze is steady. He still wants the answer.

"Singular no," she says. "Plural... I don't know."

She wouldn't have done chems, even if she'd wanted them. She'd needed a clear head, one that even mentats couldn't provide. She needed one hundred percent accuracy and clarity and focus. And a distraction.

Hence, Hancock.

If Danse knew the planning that had gone into it, he'd have been impressed. But he didn't, and he couldn't, and he wouldn't understand if he did.

"There was a party," she says. "It looked fun. Pretty dresses. Nice suits."

_The kind of thing Nate and I would have gone to_ , she thinks. She could say it. It'd be the suckerpunch. It'd be the thing to make him lower his eyes, push back his chair, and leave her to her grief.

But it wouldn't be fair, and it wouldn't be true. Nate would never have gone to a party. Biggest introvert she ever met. How he'd managed to leave the house for long enough to ever talk to her would be a mystery for the ages.

No, that's not true either. She knew how. Nate rationed his interactions. He saved them up to lavish them on her. And that's how they made it work.

That's exactly what Danse does. And that's why she likes him so much.

A little bit too much.

She gives him the rest of the story, or at least an abbreviated version, ending it at the police station. Arthur's heroic rescue. She glosses over Hancock's baiting, and the ensuing argument.

She'll probably have to have that again in a few hours.

Then she yawns, first as an act, then a real one surprises her.

"I gotta go sleep," she says.

He nods, and lets her go.

She drops onto her bed, and stares at the ceiling. But there's no rest for the wicked, so she stacks a few pillows against the headboard, reaches under the bedframe, and pulls out her laptop. She's already seen Piper's email, read half of it in the car, but there's attachments. Pictures.

She didn't want Arthur to see her looking at those.

Dogmeat jumps up onto the bed, and sits at her side. She's a tiny little tabby cat with a big personality and a bigger mouth. She'd shown up on the doorstep a few days after... you know. Mewled her damn head off until Grace had let her in.

As a rule, Grace doesn't like cats. Nasty, bitey, scratchy things. As she opens the laptop, Dogmeat leans in closer, and rubs her face on Grace's arm.

This one's kind of okay, though.

And Danse _loves_ her.

A message immediately pops up from Hancock.

_great party_  
_thanks for the invite_  
_'invite'_

She laughs.

_where did you leave your bike?_

He replies with a string of characters that look like a person shrugging.

  _it'll turn up_  
_always does_

She shakes her head. It's true, his stuff does always turn up, generally in better condition than when he lost it. She thinks of her empty driveway and wishes the same was true of hers. Not that it'd do her much good without a license. He'd helped her lose that, too.

She opens up her email, scrolls through all the adverts for hairspray and nail polish and alerts from whatever 'amusing' dating site Hancock's signed her up for recently, until she finds the one she wants.

She'd had Piper looking for information about the Brotherhood, and Piper had come through. Sort of. None of it's new, it's all stuff Grace had learned by walking in their front door. On one hand, it was annoying. Now she owed Piper, and for nothing. On the other, she hadn't told her any of this before.

Corroboration. Almost as important as redundancy.

Piper has sent over a neatly-formatted document with long bullet-pointed paragraphs. Beautifully written, as always, with carefully-placed links to illustrative pictures. Grace flicks through the images first. A few variations on the logo, old pictures of military installations. A picture of a small boy. He doesn't have the scar on his face, but it's obvious who it is. Can't mistake those eyes, even in a face that's nervous and shy and so very sweet. Odd to think of him like that. It can't even have been that long ago.

She's also, in true Piper fashion, picked up on the most scurrilous rumors.

There's the basic stuff, the foundation of the Brotherhood after the war, by Maxson's own ancestor. The military background and context, the goals of ensuring technology was used for good, and shutting down companies and projects that they felt endangered that goal.

All of that was painted on a wall in the atrium of the Prydwen Building.

Underneath it is a note in red italics, Piper's favorite.

_Funny how a lot of the technology they prevent from being developed ends up being used by them, huh?_

That's not on the wall.

There's a bit about Maxson himself. Child prodigy, graduated years before any of his peers, catapulted into leadership of the East Coast arm of the Brotherhood after the disappearance of the previous leader.

_Found nothing about Lyons's disappearance,_ says Piper's note. _A suspicious amount of nothing. Apparently Maxson shot her once. I'm not saying anything but lawyers know how to cover things up, you know?_

He has a picture of Lyons on his desk. Or he did. Grace hasn't seen it in a while.

Then there's a little bonus section. Piper's found a little bit more about the Institute, and their cybernetics. Implants, enhancements, things to make humans stronger, faster, smarter. Some kind of nonsense about recording memories, too. Grace is pretty sure the first bit's true. But the second? That sounds insane. Piper's note doesn't help either.

_There's a rumor that your 'friend' Maxson is... 'enhanced'. Any comment on that?_

She snorts with laughter, making Dogmeat's ears twitch. She can just picture Piper saying it, her eyes wide and innocent, not even needing to put air quotes around the words.

She should probably avoid Piper for a while. Let her stew.

Plenty more to be done in the meantime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anticipating the question: no, baby Shaun doesn't exist. Too traumatic without time-shifting plot devices. Don't forget him altogether, though, there's fun stuff to come.
> 
> And is it sacrilege to turn Dogmeat into a cat? I've changed the species in all of my AUs but this is the first one I've actually posted, so you probably don't know that. You should see what he is in the pirate AU. ;)
> 
> Let me know what you think, anyway. This is somewhat outside of my comfort zone. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Sitting at the kitchen table with his rapidly-cooling mug of coffee, Danse curses himself.

He curses _her_ , too. But mostly himself.

The phone had shocked him awake a few hours before, vibrating on the nightstand like an angry wasp stuck in a soda can. It was one of the few numbers that could get through to him at four o'clock in the morning.

One of the few that ever rang him at all.

"Arthur?" he'd said, bleary-eyed. Bleary-eared.

After Maxson had stopped shouting he'd explained, with the sound of the road almost drowning out his voice, that he was on his way to pick up Grace from South Boston Police Station.

The Grace who was supposed to be asleep in the other room.

He hadn't believed him, to start with. It sounded like a joke, not that Maxson was exactly the joking kind. But how she'd managed to get out of a front door that never closed quietly, and that lay directly behind the wall of his room, was beyond him.

He decided to go and check.

Her door was ajar, as usual, no light shining from within the room. He couldn't even see the faint blue glow of her computer screen, which was less usual. He paused in front of the door, his fingertips resting against its glossy surface. If this was a mistake, it would be awkward as hell. But Maxson's voice still echoed in his ear, and he had to be certain.

There was no ominous creak as he opened the door, and no indignant cry. And once inside, he didn't flip on the light. He didn't need to. The curtains were open, letting in the stark light of the streetlamps outside. Everything was in order, no sign of trouble. The bed was untouched, except for the tiny tabby cat curled up in the middle of it.

The cat was complicit in the crime.

Whenever Grace left the house, the cat would find her way to him, no matter where he was. Winding around his feet, jumping onto his lap, curling up beside his head as he lay in bed. But Grace had been gone for three hours, at least, and there she still was.

Dogmeat had pricked her ears and looked at him, her eyes glowing bright green in the dark.

_Traitor_.

The coffee was a bad idea; he certainly won't sleep now. He doesn't have the benefit of being as drunk as Grace had clearly been. A shadow of pain begins to throb behind his eyes. He pours away the rest of the mug, and hers too.

He doesn't even know why it matters so much to Maxson. If Grace wants to get away, she will. She can, she's not under any sort of confinement. If she wants to get herself arrested, let her. Let her stay there overnight. Longer. _That_ would keep her out of trouble. Maybe it would teach her a lesson.

But he won't be able to say that. Maxson will ask him what happened. How did it happen. Why did you let it happen.

He won't be able to say that, either.

It had been a whole hot summer's day of sitting in the yard near her, her bare feet propped up on the patio table, the loose neck of her shirt falling off her shoulder. Walking past him into the house in a waft of sun lotion and sweat, returning with ice tea for both of them. An evening of sitting in the kitchen, occasionally talking, but mostly falling to a comfortable silence.

It was nice. Too nice. Too nice for someone just employed to watch out for her, and too nice for someone with the kind of marks on her neck that say she's with someone else.

He'd loosened his collar, and that hadn't helped. He'd refused a beer, and that hadn't helped, either. Dogmeat had jumped on his lap; he'd pushed her away, as usual.

At ten he'd made his excuses, claimed he was tired.

She hadn't even looked up from her newspaper.

A shower before bed, just to cool himself off. Then a good night's rest, to prepare for the next few days. He'd assumed she'd do the same thing. She had to prepare too. Her role was - is - far more critical.

But not ten minutes later, she'd walked out of the house, and into trouble. With him in the shower, his hand on his cock, thinking of her.

He curses himself again.

In the end, he manages a short, unrestful sleep that leaves him more tired than he was to start with. She doesn't move until at least ten am, finally shuffling into the kitchen at nearly eleven, and dropping into the seat she'd been sat in a few hours before.

She doesn't want to eat, she just wants coffee. He feels like he should refuse, there are more important things to be doing, but she gives him a pleading look that he can't resist. The dark circles under her eyes make her look especially pitiful, and as much as she probably deserves it, it's one small thing he can do to put a smile on her face.

She buries her face in the mug and groans out her thanks.

"A little over-dramatic, don't you think?" he says.

"I know drama," she says, stirring several spoons of sugar into the mug.

That means she feels really bad.

She rests her cheek in the palm of her hand. "Did I ever tell you I was in a play?"

He shakes his head, and rinses out the sink.

"I didn't like it," she says. "Standing up in front of a whole lot of people, all staring at you and waiting for you to do something."

He turns to her in surprise, because that sounds like the exact kind of thing she'd like.

She inhales the steam from her coffee, and looks at him. "I'm sure you're thinking that's the exact kind of thing I'd like," she continues, "but I didn't."

She seems to be waiting for a response.

Grace loves to be the center of attention. If she's in a room with other people and not loudly objecting to someone telling her what to do, then it's probably not Grace.

Of course.

"It wasn't your story," he says.

"Exactly," she says. "Plus, my lines were awful and my character died in Act 1."

She dips her finger in the milk jug and lets the cat lick it off. He frowns, hoping she doesn't put her finger back in. It's hardly hygienic to start with.

"I assume Maxson wants to see you today," he says.

She nods, slowly, wiping her finger on her jeans, pushing the cat away from the jug. "I think I was supposed to be there about fifteen minutes ago," she says.

He holds back a sigh of irritation. It takes half an hour to get there with no traffic. "We need to leave, then," he says.

She rubs her forehead. "Let's leave it a while, shall we? I can't go like this."

She looks perfectly fine to him, but she has her rules. The clothes are one thing, but she doesn't have that blood-red slick of lipstick in place.

"In fact," she says. "I don't want to go at all."

Somehow, he knew it was coming. And somehow, he knows that he'll have to agree to it, and let her think that he approves.

He doesn't.

"We're at a critical stage of the project," he says. "I don't think that's the wisest decision."

She stares blankly into her mug. "I can't do anything until Monday anyway," she says. "All that's going to happen is that Maxson's going to shout at me, and then we'll come straight back here. Better he does it on the day, get me fired up for my grand entrance."

* * *

So it's not until Monday morning that he's pulling out of the garage, waiting for her to get in. She drops onto the seat next to him with a thud, swinging her feet into the car, tossing her purse into the footwell.

He looks at her face before she notices him looking at her legs. Her lips are extra-bloody today, curving into a quick smile before she turns away to look at her phone.

"Ready?" he asks.

"Yep," she says, ending the word with a pop of those lips.

"Do you have the plans?" he asks.

She waves her phone at him. The screen is full of text, nothing else.

"And you know all of the timings?" he asks.

She waves her phone at him.

He sighs. "Do you have the disc?"

She waves her phone at him again.

"Grace," he says, seriously.

"Okay," she says. She pokes her toe at her purse. "In there. As you might expect."

"Show me," he says.

"I'm not showing you the inside of my purse," she says. "It's private."

He still doesn't pull away from the house.

She locks her phone, and looks at him with a weary expression. "Relax, Danse," she says. "I know what I'm doing. I'm an actor, remember?"

"You said you were in one play," he says. "For one act."

"Less than one act," she says, "and it was a one-off performance. But you know, being an actor, or a writer, or anything like that... it's about desire, rather than experience."

She pauses, her eyes briefly locked on his, then looks back at the blank screen of of her phone. Perhaps she's more nervous than she's letting on. Maybe that's a good thing; everyone's nervous when they go for an interview. It'll help her blend in, make it more likely that she'll be successful.

He does hope she's successful.

"Fine," he says. "Have it your way."

They drive on in a merciful silence. She spends most of the time looking out of the window, her arm stretched out on the window bed. He's just reaching out to put on the radio when she reaches out too, her hand just brushing against his.

"Stop the car," she says. Her eyes are wide, and almost before he pulls to a stop, she's pulling at the door handle to get it open.

A few minutes later, after he's been half-deafened by traffic objecting to his parking position, she gets back in with a tray of three coffees and a couple of paper bags. She holds one out to him with a smile.

"I told you to stop getting me these," he says.

"I know," she says. "But you didn't really mean it, did you?"

He stares at the bag, grease starting to seep through it already. "What if I had?"

"I'd have known and not bought them for you," she says.

He shakes his head.

"I see you," she says. "I see your mouth watering at the sight of them. You want them. Admit it."

He tries to ignore her, but she shakes them, and the sound of sugar trickling into the bottom of the bag is too much to resist. He grabs it, and stuffs it into the door. He can't eat them now. He has to get her to the Prydwen Building before Maxson starts calling and shouting. Again.

To her credit, she doesn't crow over her victory. She nods, showing that she's perhaps a little pleased with herself, and puts the rest in the footwell. Then she remains quiet for the rest of the journey.

Almost.

  
Despite parking next to the express elevator, next to Maxson's own car, she punches the button for the ground floor. Her heels tap loudly on the metal flooring of the lobby. She stops briefly at the desk.

"Could you tell Mr Maxson that we're on our way up?" she says, and tip-taps back to the elevator.

"Why do you always do this?" he says.

She hands him the coffee and snacks, and pulls a card from her purse. "Because," she says, "if the Institute _are_ watching me, and I waltz right into the boss's office with this shiny little keycard..."

She raises her eyebrow, and waves the card at him. She does a lot of that; waving things that he's supposed to already understand. He finds it almost intolerably rude, but she does make a good point. So far, it can be passed off that she's consulting with her lawyer. How many legal firms give their clients direct access to their lawyer's office?

Come to think of it, how many of the Brotherhood's clients have received that honor?

On the top floor the lift pings softly, and the doors slide open. She walks out into the hallway and into his office, her steps silenced as she crosses onto the carpet.

"It's about time you showed up," snaps Maxson, looking over his shoulder.

"Morning," she says, brightly. "Brought those pastries I promised."

"You were supposed to come in on Friday," he says.

Danse feels a pang of irritation. She'd said she'd made her excuses. He enters the room himself, places the drinks on the desk, and retreats back to the doorway.

She perches against the edge of the desk. "I didn't feel so hot," she says.

"Hardly surprising," says Maxson. "The stink of alcohol on you was embarrassing. The whole incident was embarrassing."

She reaches behind her for one of the coffees, and takes a slow sip on it before replying. "You weren't there for the embarrassing part."

Maxson's face is stony and still. "I didn't need to be," he says. "I saw the photographs."

She reaches behind her again, takes a pastry, and breaks a piece off the end. A shower of crumbs falls down to the floor. She looks down, and brushes some off her knee.

Maxson's eyes follow them.

Danse wishes he could tell her to stop antagonizing him, but she'd ignore him. He'd given up trying to diffuse these situations long before. He just had to wait until the interview was over, and hope nothing got broken before that.

Nothing had ever been broken before, mind. But it seemed only a matter of time.

"You're to report to their reception by 9am," says Maxson, turning his back on the room. His hands are clasped behind his back.

"I know," she says.

"You are to do everything you can to infiltrate them. We've provided documentation, references, and an exit route in case anything goes wrong."

"I know," she says, through another mouthful of pastry.

"If you are compromised," he says, "you will not mention the Brotherhood."

"What if I'm under 'extreme duress'?" she asks.

Maxson's hands clasp a little tighter. "I suggest you don't allow yourself to get into such a situation. Hence, you may like to be a little less attention-seeking than normal."

She laughs, and slowly licks her fingers clean. "Where's the fun in that?"

Maxson turns around again, and fixes her with a trademark frown. "It's not about fun," he says. "You need to remain inconspicuous."

"Come on, Arthur," she says. "You don't get a job these days by being inconspicuous. You gotta be the best and brightest of the bunch or, you know, have the right surname. Besides, have you never heard of the concept of 'hidden in plain sight'? Or did you miss that class?"

Maxson's temper is clearly holding on by the barest of threads. He pauses, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath through his nose.

She takes another sip of her coffee.

Maxson shakes his head in mock confusion. "Forgive me," he says, "but it seems like you've forgotten what this is all about."

"No," she says. "I haven't. I still think about Nate quite a lot."

Danse shifts awkwardly on his feet. You could cut the silence with a knife.

"This is not a personal mission of revenge," says Maxson, after a few moments. "It is a very important project, into which we have poured thousands of dollars, and thousands of hours. It is..."

"It is both," she says, cutting him off. "And that's why you need to trust me. I am going to get to the bottom of this, and if I have to drag you along with me then so be it. But stop trying to pretend that I couldn't have gotten in there on my own."

"Do you truly think you could have?" he says.

"I still can," she says. "You can keep your documentation and your references and your exit routes, and I can give my information to anyone I please."

"I'd like to see you get it out of the building," says Maxson. His eyes close into a blink that lasts a little longer than normal.

She doesn't reply. She doesn't move at all. Not for the first time, Danse thinks they look like a pair of fighters sizing each other up. One is slighter than the other, has less training, seems to be at a disadvantage. Both are brimming with confidence, perhaps too much confidence. The difference between them is only how they react to the first blow.

"Danse," says Maxson, without looking away from her. "You can go now."

"Certainly," he says, and takes his leave.

She'll be making her own way to the Institute. That's all he knows. He doesn't know where the Institute is, he doesn't know what she's doing when she gets there, he doesn't even know where she got the information. That was one of the first times she shook him off, in a public place, no less. Maxson doesn't entirely trust this information, that much is obvious. It doesn't seem that he even trusts Grace, but in the absence of a better option, he's being forced to rely on her. And send her in alone.

When he gets back into the car, he finds the cakes still stuffed in the side pocket. They're cold, now, and so is the coffee she managed to leave for him without him even noticing. But the aroma of butterscotch is overpowering, filling the whole car, and the taste is just as good as it ever is.

The worst thing is, it's started to remind him of her.


	4. Chapter 4

Grace flashes her pass, tip-taps down the aisle, and swings herself into an empty seat. She smoothes down her skirt and leans her head back against the window. She's got a buzz from the caffeine, a fresh slick of red on her lips, and the first traces of bruises on the front of her thighs.

 _Now_ she's fired up.

Maxson had waited for her to wipe the last traces of lipstick away, with one of the plasticky serviettes from the coffee shop. His hands were perhaps a little hesitant before sliding around her waist, but his lips soon crushed hers, confident as usual. Or maybe just keen to stop her talking. That was what Nate had always said.

At least he'd always said it with a smile.

"Why do you do this to me?" asked Maxson, dipping his head to her neck. He pressed his teeth into her skin, sending a shiver down her spine.

She didn't reply, only touched her hand to his chin to bring his eyes back to hers.

"Why didn't you come to see me?" he asked, his fingers pulling open the top button of her shirt, a thumb stroking down the center of her chest.

She said nothing, only hooked her fingers into his tie to loosen it, and pull him in closer.

"The whole weekend," he said. "We could have done so much."

"Oh," she said, finally. "What did you have in mind?"

Then it was his turn to stay silent, his expression saying quite enough.

"Why don't you show me?" she said.

He took a measured breath, put both of his hands on her ass, and pulled her against him. When he managed to speak, it was through half-clenched teeth. "How long do you have?"

He was already rock-hard.

"Long enough," she said.

She shivered as his fingertips ran up the back of her thighs, lifting her skirt, pulling her underwear aside. Even after such a short time of... of whatever it was they had, she knew how much he liked to fuck her over his desk, with the whole Commonwealth spread out outside the window. It wasn't a bad view for her, either. In front of her, the city. Over her shoulder, one of the most attractive men in it.

And at least if he was fucking her he was looking reasonably happy.

He slammed into her, hard and deep, crushing her against the desk with every thrust. One hand rested on the surface of it, between her own, the other roaming wherever it could reach on her body. If they'd had more time, she'd have grabbed that hand, and made it do exactly what she wanted. But they didn't, and that wasn't the point anyway.

"Fuck," he said. "I can't... I need..."

He wrapped his arms around her, one around her waist, the other across her chest, pulling her back flush against him. Leaning the weight of the both of them on her thighs, he rode out his orgasm with a series of muttered curses.

His cheek was damp against hers. "I need more," he said. "Come back. Later. Please."

For Grace, nothing starts a day better than a good hard fuck. And nothing helps her get through a stressful day like knowing there's more of the same waiting at the end of it.

"I'll try," she said, pressing her cheek against his.

She can still almost feel the impression of his stubble on her jaw.

On the seat opposite, a tourist stifles a yawn, accidentally letting out a squeak. Bright jacket, brighter baseball cap, dark sunglasses. Grace smiles, thinking that the shades are probably doing more to protect him against himself than the sky, which is grey and heavy with the promise of rain. Saturday had been beautiful, but then on Sunday a vicious storm had blown up from the south and ruined everyone's plans.

The ones Grace hadn't ruined, anyway.

She's so deep in thought that she barely notices her stop, having to drag herself to her feet and leap toward the doors as they're already closing. On the sidewalk, she pulls herself together, and looks up at the building. CIT. The Institute, or at least the front for it. Another monstrosity of glass and steel, rising high into the skyline of the Commonwealth. Piper's notes said there was a huge and secret underground complex beneath it too.

Maybe she'd be able to verify that.

The front doors slide open, relaying her into the reception area. Her shoes, so loud on the concrete outside, are slightly muffled by a rubberized coating on the floor. It's clean, and bright, and everything appears to be made from plastic. Everything. Furniture, decorations, plants.

People.

"Grace!" says the receptionist, with the bright smile and blank eyes of someone who's worked in customer service for too long.

Grace pauses a moment. Everything she's seen so far had her putting the place down as a strict _Mr/Ms Surname_ workplace. They're going off-script already.

"Hi," she says. "I have an appointment with..."

"It's good to see you," interrupts the receptionist. "Please, take a seat, the Director will be ready for you soon."

"The Director?" says Grace. "Oh no, I'm here to see Mr Ayo, not...."

"Please, take a seat," says the receptionist, with the same blank smile.

 _Fine_ , thinks Grace. _I guess I'll take a seat_.

She chooses a red plastic bench, which turns out to be one of the least comfortable seats she's ever experienced. There's some kind of attempt at softness in the bright foam coating over it, but it seems to have been designed by somebody who never intended to actually sit. She drops her purse by her side. Inside it, her phone vibrates. Probably Maxson trying to remind her of something.

She ignores it.

She crosses her feet under her, sits straight-backed, tries not to be too obvious as she looks around the atrium. The plants are too green, the light too bright. And the whole place is too quiet. For an open-plan building, with curved balconies circling the central space, there's hardly any noise. The Prydwen is a constant hum of activity, lifts pinging, people talking, coffee machines gurgling on every floor. Piper's office sounds like something between a battlefield and a school playground.

Maybe the scientists just have better sound-proofing.

She reaches out, takes a pristine magazine from the table in front of her, and flips through the pages. She watches out of the corner of her eye as a cleaner moves across the other side of the hall, methodically sweeping the spotless floor. A set of sliding doors swish open to reveal a pair of scientists, complete with lab coats and clipboards, holding a low conversation.

So far, so normal.

The cleaner accidentally knocks his broom against the leg of a chair, the sound echoing noisily in the empty space. The scientists stop their conversation. One crosses the hall, quickly, and snaps his fingers in front of the cleaner's face.

Grace looks down at the magazine before he can see her watching. She can't hear what he's saying, not precisely. But she can make out a couple of his hissed words.

Useless. Pathetic.

Charming.

 _Five tips to improve your outlook on life_ , she reads. Seems like these guys could do with reading their own material.

When she looks up again, both cleaner and scientist are gone, and the receptionist is standing a few feet away.

"The Director is ready for you," he says, with another wide smile.

He ushers her across the atrium and into the elevator, swiping a card through a reader and pressing a combination of keys almost too quickly for Grace to memorize them. The elevator moves so smoothly and silently that once the atrium has disappeared from view, it's only the dragging sensation in her stomach that tells her it's moving at all. Then another tells her it's stopped.

There's no number to indicate the floor. She steps out into the corridor. Outside, the doors having closed behind her, she sees only a card reader and no call button.

It's fine, though. She's not trapped. She's just... there.

The corridor is brightly-lit, with more of that rubberized coating on every surface. The lower half of the wall is yellow, oddly textured, clashing uneasily with the blue light that comes from flat frosted panels on the ceiling. Squares of flashing LEDs are set into the wall every six feet or so. Grace decides that they can't possibly be doing anything. They must just be there to make it feel futuristic. Appearances are everything, after all.

The first door along the corridor is locked, the second also.

"Lab rat challenge," says Grace. "Wonder where the cheese is."

She ducks around a couple of corners, all blue and yellow and flashing lights, and comes to an office, backed up with glass windows that lead onto one of the balconies. There doesn't seem to be a door in them, which explains the lack of noise in the atrium but doesn't explain the furniture out on that balcony.

She drags her attention away, because in front of that is the Director. He's standing by his desk, fingers of one hand resting gently on its surface. He must be sixty years old, his white hair and beard neat and as surprisingly bright as everything else in this place. Walk outside and the white hair you see is speckled with grey, or stained yellow by tobacco and pollution and time. Stands to reason that anything old in here would still gleam like fresh snow.

When he speaks, his voice is soft and smooth, as though it belongs to a much younger man.

"Grace," he says. "It's so good to finally meet you."

He reaches out, and takes both her hands in his. His grip starts weak and faltering, but grows stronger. His eyes flicker over her face.

He seems to be inspecting her.

"To see you in the flesh like this," he says. "It's quite remarkable."

"You're the Director?" she asks. "I didn't catch your name."

"Oh," he says, dropping her hands. "I'm sorry, Grace, please. Call me Shaun. You don't mind if I call you Grace, do you?"

_Yes, I do fucking mind, you asshole._

"Of course not," she says, with a wide smile.

"Please," he says. "Sit down. I'll fetch you some water."

She sits, crosses her ankles, smoothes her skirt. Another quick look around the office shows her a lightbox on the wall, perhaps for displaying X-Rays. A set of drawers that seem designed for medical equipment. A few pieces of paper on the desk, and a vase of flowers that are so bright they have to be fake.

He pushes a glass across the table toward her and sits, with a sharp intake of breath. "Grace Adams," he says, recovering himself. "When your application crossed my desk, I must admit I was surprised. I'm aware of your... history. I'm also aware of your contacts with the Brotherhood of Steel."

He's watching her, his eyes fixed on hers. She meets them, coolly, not speaking. He hasn't asked for an explanation, so she's not going to offer one.

He shuffles a couple of pieces of paper. "By all rights, you should not have been allowed in the building. I was advised as much. But I advocated for you. I know a lot more about you than you think. Than anyone thinks."

She takes a sip of water, swallowing down the mounting sense of unease. Kellogg's words float back into her mind.

_She's safe. She's got a fan._

"You have a history with us," he says. "A grievance. One that many would try to cover up, or conceal. Of course, to try to conceal it would not have helped. The moment I saw you, I would have known, and we would certainly not be having this meeting."

Grace nods, once. All the fake documentation she'd received from the Brotherhood had long since been shredded.

"That you've come so openly," continues Shaun, "gives me hope."

 _Hidden in plain sight_ , she thinks. _Even plainer than Maxson was expecting._

"So tell me," he says. "Why are you here?"

"You know why," she says. "You're responsible for the death of my husband. I want answers. That's all."

"Yes," says Shaun. "I thought as much. It was... unfortunate, but sadly unavoidable. Your husband put us in a very difficult situation."

She takes another sip of water, willing herself to remain calm.

"But, I suppose, you deserve some answers." He laces his fingers together, and regards her, a serious expression on his face. "I'm sure you're aware of what we do here," he says. "Reconstructive surgery, orthodontistry, related pharmaceuticals. We work for the betterment of mankind, on a personal level."

She nods, slightly. Just that morning Piper had fed her with more salacious gossip about strength-enhancing chemicals and ensuing psychosis-related controversy.

"But of course," says Shaun. "These are only items that are available to the public. We also have many... projects, of varying levels of confidentiality."

Her fingers are gripping too tightly onto her glass, so she puts it down on the table, resting one hand in the other on her lap. _Go on,_ she nods.

"One such project is cybernetic implants," he says. He reaches out to a small, flat box, the shape and size of a wristwatch. From it, he pulls a device, and holds it gently between two fingers. It's a soft strip of plastic, flecked with circuitry. She'd found one similar in Kellogg's head, nestled inside his skull like a golden ticket in a bar of chocolate.

And like the golden ticket, it had gained her entrance to the factory.

"Undetectable by all but the most invasive tests," he continues. "Able to be accessed remotely to retrieve and submit data. A black box recorder, for the mind. If victims can reveal the nature of their death, and the decisions that occurred leading up to it, future incidents might be averted. A relatively simple piece of technology. But you already know that."

Shaun places the implant back in its box. "As is so often the case, we discovered... additional uses for it. Human memory is fallible. Incorrect recall can read to terrible miscarriages of justice. Learned responses are based on a storage system that is at best imperfect, and at worst fatally flawed. We also discovered that through manipulation of memory certain... undesirable traits could be eliminated."

A wave of nausea rises in Grace's stomach.

"Your husband was part of a program to install these in the future leaders of the military. The primary function was training; ensuring that soldiers truly were learning from their mistakes, and not repeating them." Shaun shifts in his seat, clearly now favouring one side of his body over the other. "Your husband was an excellent soldier, but a nervous man. He had little hope of progressing. We proposed a... solution. He declined. In fact, he requested to be removed from the program altogether. Unfortunately, with the amount he already knew, this rendered him a risk. An unacceptable risk."

She picks up the glass, and takes another sip. An unacceptable risk. Her husband, boiled down to three words. Three words so unlike him it was almost impossible to reconcile the two.

It gets worse.

"I grieved for him," says Shaun. His eyes are damp, and bloodshot. "For you. For what you could have had. I still can't forgive myself for that."

A shiver threatens to run through her whole body, but she holds herself perfectly still.

"I had a lot of hope for him," continues Shaun. "And... after we reviewed the logs, for you. Apart from how he clearly felt for you, you showed yourself to be independent, strong-willed, intelligent. And since then, of course, you have only impressed me more. Kellogg was my finest operative. Accepting his loss was... difficult for everyone. Particularly when it was discovered that his implant was gone. When the same happened with the next operative, I knew, even without any proof, that it was you. So; I've been waiting. I knew you'd come. It simply remains to be seen if you've come with a gun or an olive branch."

Grace presses her lips together. Her lipstick has left a bloody mark on the edge of her glass; she looks at it, for a moment, considering her response.

The logs. That's what they're called. Nate's whole existence, boiled down to _two_ words now, encoded on a shitty piece of plastic. What was it like, scrolling back through five years of marriage. _Oh, I think he liked Grace_. What made him think that? The first date? The proposal? Buying the house?

What else did he see?

Did he see her riding his cock like a fairground ride?

Did he see her tying his wrists to the bed, and fucking herself senseless just out of his reach?

She closes her eyes, and tries to breathe.

_She's got a fan._

Remote access data transfer. He'd been looking at Nate's memories already. He was using that shit in Nate's head to spy on him all along, on _her_ , and he thinks she doesn't know.

"So," says Shaun, politely. "Which is it?"

Grace takes a deep breath. If she says the wrong thing, she's trapped on the whatever floor of a building she can't get out of, with innumerable shady operatives between her and the outside world. That whole extreme duress scenario might come to pass.

On the other hand... she does have a fan.

She looks him right in the eye. "I'm not sure, yet."

He nods. "It's a lot to take in, I know. I won't press you for an immediate answer, but I do have a proposition that may help you decide."

"Go on," she says.

"Work with us," he says. "You're skilled. You're intelligent. You would be a great asset. We can provide you with everything you need. More. You'll have a safe space, here. A security detail. We can do great things, for all of mankind."

Grace doesn't reply.

"Think about it," he says. He reaches into a drawer, and pulls out a plain white card. "Here. With this, you may come and go as you please. Take your time. But please, at least think about it."


	5. Chapter 5

Hancock jumps down the stairs, two at a time, landing lightly in the hallway before heading into the lounge. Mac's lying on the couch with Duncan, both of them concentrating furiously on whatever sport's going on on the screen. It seems to revolve around a pack of stocky-looking men punching each other in the face.

He sniffs the air, loudly. "Hey Mac," he says. "I think Duncan needs changin'."

"What?" says Mac, lifting the kid. "Again? Jeez."

Duncan squeals and kicks his legs, entirely innocent of the crime, but highly amused by it.

"Oh. Very funny," says Mac, rolling his eyes, and sitting him back down. "You know, one day I'm not going to fall for that."

"Keep dreamin'," says Hancock. He ruffles the kid's hair, then ruffles Mac's hair too. Both of them flinch away with cute little grins on their faces.

Like father, like son.

Hancock grins back at them both.

"I gotta go out," he says. "That okay with you?"

"Yeah," says Mac, his eyes returning to the screen. "Work, or what?"

"Gracie," says Hancock. He leans over, shows Mac his phone and the three messages on it, received one after the other:

  _are you in the Third Rail?_  
_please be in the Third Rail_  
_if you're not then do you want to go to the Third Rail?_

"Wow," says Mac. "That doesn't look good."

"Yeah," says Hancock. Grace is the type to dot the is and cross the ts, even on a swiftly-jotted message. She doesn't let anything get past her. She's a perfectionist, a planner, precise, a whole lot of other things beginning with P that all line up to suggest that somethin' ain't right here.

"Just don't make as much noise coming in as you did last time," says Mac. "Took me forever to get Dunc settled."

"I did say sorry about that," says Hancock. "Didn't I? I don't rightly recall, I wasn't exactly compos mentis. I do remember the last time _you_ went out with Gracie, though."

"Yeah, well," says Mac. "So do I, and I wish I didn't."

He carries on watching the game, in which the group of guys are now standing still, staring at one of their number who seems to be dancing for them.

"You sure you'll be alright on your own?" says Hancock.

Mac makes an unimpressed noise, a snort that makes Duncan giggle and reach out for his dad's nose. "I think I can cope," he says, indignant. But he doesn't stay that way for long, never does. "Say hi to Grace for me, huh?"

"Will do," says Hancock.

  
Stepping out into the street, he takes in a deep breath. Still feels good to get some air in his lungs, and the way his fellow sidewalk-ers are covering their noses says he's not missing much, smell-wise. It's hot and muggy, the air too full of moisture to let the roads dry out after all the rain. So it's probably a heady combination of garbage, gasoline, dogshit and whatever crap's decomposing in the gutters.

That's Goodneighbor for you. Gotta love it.

The Third Rail is close enough to Hancock's place to walk there. In fancy-ville over to the west, so many jewelery shops they call the place Diamond City, you bet your ass people call a cab to go one block. Probably the same down south, where those lawyer assholes dumped their ugly skyscraper. Not so in Goodneighbor. Goodneighbor's more down-to-earth. More honest.

Well. For some definitions of the word.

As he walks, he thinks. Grace isn't the type to panic, so something's really thrown her for a loop. It's a long time since Hancock's seen that happen. Last time, someone was dead. Then a few more people got that way. He'd been thinking it was only a matter of time before she asked him to help dispose of a body, and maybe now was it.

He'd say yes, of course. It wouldn't be his first time. But she didn't have to know that.

He stops in a doorway, with a tacky neon sign flickering over his head. The Third Rail. In terms of sticky-floored dive bars, this one's particularly sticky, and a literal dive, set underground as it is in a disused subway station. Low lighting, couple of TVs up by the ceiling, dusty pool table out back. Long, dark wood bar set up against one wall, with exotic bottles and cans lined up on shelves behind it.

At night, the place is roaring. A little DJ booth over in the corner gets unlocked, a tiny dancefloor is cleared, and a gaggle of girls and guys in sparkly outfits turn up to make the place look pretty. The rest of the place is loud conversations about comic books, computer games, and politics. Wild crowd. Seated groups laughing raucously over whatever conversation they're having, standing groups glaring at them, willing them to leave, plus some isolated pockets of dancers getting in everyone's way.

During the day, it's a little more sedate. There's usually someone perched at the bar, and a couple of guys (or girls) sat in front of one of those TVs, arguing sports or politics over some ill-advised daytime beers. Once in a while you'll get a pair of suits roll in, flashing the cash like they're doing the underclass a favor just by turning up.

Assholes.

Hancock heads up to the bar, and slams his hands on the counter. "Gimme a bottle of red and a bucket", he says.

The barman doesn't bat an eyelid. That's just Charlie, though. Charlie's a solid-built Brit with a receding hairline and a hardness in his face that says never to mention said receding hairline. Fists made of steel, or so say all the people who've received one or both of those fists to the face.

"Ice in the bucket?" says Charlie.

"Nah," says Hancock. "The bucket's for Gracie to drink out of."

Charlie fixes him with a hard stare, about as hard as the ones he gives when people mention his accent.

"Okay," says Hancock. "Forget the bucket. Gimme a couple of glasses, though, if you don't want us swiggin' out of the bottle."

Hancock might own the place, but Charlie _rules_ it.

He heads for the usual booth, pouring out the first drinks and piling up the cushions into his own personal mountain of comfort. He's surprised to find himself kinda nervous.

Before he can think too much more about it, there's a tip-tap coming down the stairs, getting louder until Grace appears in the doorway. High heels, neat little skirt, button-down shirt. Businesslike. She does look a little like the kind of asshole who'd tip meanly and still expect to be thanked for it, but that's the kind of folk she's been hanging around with. Some version of incognito, he guesses.

She looks straight over to his booth, and waves. She nods at Charlie as she passes, receiving the briefest nod back. Then she slides onto the seat next to him, dropping her purse beside her.

Hancock pushes a glass across the table toward her.

She takes a large gulp, wiping her mouth after she puts the glass back down. "You're an angel," she says.

"I know," he says.

She leans her head back against the dark panelling on the wall, her mouth slightly open. She looks calm, but her breathing's fast. She pulls her phone from her bag, and taps out a quick message.

Hancock grins. "Tellin' your boyfriend where you are?"

She gives him a little look, and a wave of something not quite right passes over her face. A twitch of an eyebrow, a narrowing of the eyes. A question.

_Which one?_

Hancock knows about the asshole lawyer, of course, he's dragged all the gory details out of her before. Only other excessively handsome guy of her acquaintance he can think of his her on-off bodyguard. Interesting. Maybe she wants him to do a bit more with that body of hers.

"Danse," she says. "So no."

Denial ain't just a river in... wherever it is.

He lets her finish her tapping, and drop the phone back in her purse. "Tough day?" he asks.

"You have no idea," she says, taking another gulp of her drink.

"Well, don't drag it out," he says. "I'm dyin' here."

"In a moment," she says, already sliding out of the booth. "I need a water. Want one?"

"Filthy stuff," says Hancock. "Never touch it, myself."

She walks on over to the bar and leans on it, waiting for Charlie to finish serving some guy in a leather jacket and sunglasses. When he's done, she makes her order. Turns out she didn't listen to him, because Charlie's filling two glasses with ice and water.

Then it all comes clear.

She drinks one right there at the bar, leaving the glass on the counter. She slides a little folded-up piece of paper under it and leaves it there, right next to that shady character in dark glasses. Then she wanders back over to the table with the one glass, like nothing's happened.

It's either that she doesn't think he notices these things, or she doesn't care. Either way ain't good if anyone else happens to notice what she's up to.

He could just let it slide. Maybe he ought to.

He doesn't.

"You out for a hook-up?" he asks.

"In a way," she says, looking him right in the eyes. "More of an... appointment."

"Special service, huh? Kinky."

She bats his arm with her hand, laughing and shaking her head.

Hancock doesn't see the paper disappear. Nor the guy sat next to it. But next time he looks up, they're both as gone as each other, and Charlie's wiping down the bar where they'd been.

Huh.

They go through the usual greetings, the how are yous, the how've you beens, the accepted social contract.

"So come on," he says. "What's the deal? Why'd you need me?"

"I need your advice," she says.

"Aww," he replies. "I was hopin' you were after another distraction. I enjoyed the last one."

Grace smiles. "I thought so," she says. "I see you've still got the coat."

He plucks at the lapel. "Suits me, don't it? Ironic military style. Now come on, quit trying to distract me and spill."

She starts to explain. CIT, aka the Institute, apparently. Shiny receptions, shiny people. All assholes more concerned with appearances than actual work. She walks in the door and gets given an office, a desk, and a computer with unlimited access to all their systems.

So far, so 21st century workplace.

Then she talks him up to some mysterious un-numbered floor, and it's all experimental cybernetics. Not just restoring fragments of memory, reliving them. Watching them as they happen, even.

Then it gets _really_ weird.

She twists the bottle in her hands, reading or more likely not-reading the label. "The guy's... I don't know. Fixated on me. It's creepy."

"You think he'll try anything?"

"No," she says. "Well, I don't know. It didn't feel like _me_ , me. It was like... Nate's version of me. He kept talking about how Nate... felt. But I don't see how that can possibly have been recorded."

"Maybe it's like watching a TV series," he says. "Seein' a nice couple get together. Or not. Always ruined it if they actually got together, I thought, but sometimes people like that kinda thing. Yay, Nate and Grace, together forever."

Except... not. Shit. He shouldn't have said that.

She sighs, and stares into her glass.

"Well," he says, trying to move on. "Seems like the perfect opportunity. If he trusts you, you can rinse them for all the data you need."

"Too perfect," she says. "Too neat. I just feel like... I felt like I was in control. And now I'm not. They were watching me, and I had no idea. Sure I've got access, I could get the data, but what's to say they're not monitoring the machine?"

"I dunno," he says. "But it occurs to me that you're the one who can find out."

"Sure," she says. "With a bit more preparation. I just don't know if I want to go back in. Whole place gives me the creeps."

Hancock looks at her. "Did he show you any of it?"

Her eyes are bright, her expression sharp. "What? Of Nate? No. I wouldn't want to see it, anyway."

"Man," says Hancock. "That would be weird, seeing someone else look at yourself. Like a mirror, but worse. Would be bad enough to be recorded and have to see yourself in the bathroom. You'd never be able to jerk off again. Or..."

She grimaces, and drinks some more wine.

"Oh," he says. "Do you think..."

"I don't know," she says. "Maybe? I didn't ask. I was too busy trying not to gag at the thought."

"I didn't have you down as the shy and retirin' type," he says.

She smacks her hand on the table, shaking it.

Hancock's eyebrows, or what's left of them, rise up in surprise. Not often he sees Grace lose her cool.

"Sorry," she says, pulling back her hand, holding it up in a placatory gesture. "But that's not the point. If I want someone to see me, that's fine. But nobody asked me. I don't know what they've seen, what they've recorded, what they still have, even."

"Imagine, though," he says. "That shit would sell like hot cakes."

"What?"

Her voice is hard as steel, and her face ain't much softer.

"I don't mean you," he says. "I mean think of the potential. You can read your erotica, and that's one thing, and you can watch people bone on the internet until the cows come home, but bein' inside someone's brain when they're doin' it? That's gotta be intense. And profitable. You corner that market early, you're a billionaire."

She's staring at him, open-mouthed.

"You think that's what they're up to?" he says.

"Why is that the first thing to cross your mind?"

"What?" he asks. "Sex or money? You do know me, right?"

She lets out an exasperated sigh.

"I'm an entrepreneur, ain't I?" he says. "Sex sells. And what you always want is something you can do once and sell a million times. So the bulk of your income would have to come from recordings, nicely staged, nicely edited. But on the side, for the immediacy more than the profit, you could do livestreams."

This line of conversation doesn't seem to be helping Grace all that much, judging by the way she's looking sideways and rapidly draining her glass. So Hancock catches Charlie's attention and taps the empty bottle. Strictly speaking, the Third Rail doesn't do table service, but if you can't abuse your authority when you own a place, when can you?

Grace keeps silent as Charlie approaches.

"Is the wine to your liking, sir," says Charlie, his voice thick with sarcasm.

"Delightful," says Hancock. "Send my regards to your... wine-buyer."

Charlie slams the bottle down on the table and strolls back out of earshot.

"Why would he do it?" she asks. The wine seems to be hitting her now, making her gesticulate as she talks. "Why would he let them put that shit in his head?"

Hancock nods, and rubs the back of his hand over his nose. "People do all kinds of shit when they're in a bad place," he says. "Ask me how I know."

"What bad place?" she asks. "We were fine."

He shrugs. "That's the military for you. They probably pressured him. More like, they told him it was nothing, just a formality. You told me about his friend, the one that went crazy from the chems they put him on. Pretty sure they didn't start him on the full crazy-making dose."

"Mark?" she says. "That's even worse. Nate knew about that, he had to take down his best friend for fuck's sake. He never stopped grieving for him. Why would he agree to anything even remotely similar?"

"Maybe it was there already," says Hancock. "You can't deny that Nate was easily led. Ain't that what you liked about him?"

"No," she says. She frowns, like she's in pain. "I didn't not like it. It was frustrating, sometimes. But, you know, we worked together. We worked really well together."

Something's still bothering her, that's obvious.

"He never told me," she says, eventually. "He never fucking told me. How could he let them put something in his head, or have something there all along and not tell me?"

"Sounds to me like they'd have known if he did," he says.

She covers her eyes with her fingers, and breathes for a little while.

He gives her a moment.

"You're right," she says, her voice muffled by her hands. "Shit."

"I don't want to tell you who to be angry with," he says. "But it ain't Nate. Even if it was, it wouldn't do ya much good."

She nods, eyes still covered.

"Okay," he says. "What're you gonna do?"

She leans back, takes a deep breath. "I guess I need to report in. Find out what the Brotherhood want me to do next. And then decide what I'm actually going to do."

From what Hancock saw earlier, she's already done the last part. And going to talk to a lawyer after the best part of a bottle of wine doesn't seem like such a smart idea. Specially not one as far along the asshole-lawyer scale as Maxson. "You in a fit state to do that?" he asks.

"Sure I am," she says. "What time is it, nine? He'll be drunker than me, guaranteed."

"Positive?" he asks.

"Hundred percent," she says. "And... thanks. I really appreciate this. I know it's the second time I've kinda dumped on you recently. I hope I can repay the favor."

Hancock waves his hand. "It's nothin', sunshine. I just like to see your pretty face in my bar. You make me look good."

She laughs, and slides her way out of the booth, straightening her skirt.

"Oh, I nearly forgot," he says. "Mac says hi. So does Duncan. Well, he drooled a bit and made some kinda disgustin' noise with his nose, but that's as good as you're going to get."

Grace smiles, and it's a proper smile, warm and friendly. "Well," she says, "tell 'em I said hi back."

And with that, she tip-taps her way back out of the bar, stopping briefly to drop a few notes on the counter for Charlie.

Hancock pours out the rest of the wine into his glass. Shitty situation, sure, but if anyone can handle it, it's Grace.


	6. Chapter 6

The rain did little to damp down the usual heady smells of Goodneighbor. If anything, the moisture-filled air let them all rise higher, and travel further. And now the day is ending, the tone of it is changing. The smell of food escapes from restaurant kitchens, doors flung wide open as evening service hots up. The smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol rises from groups of party-goers, lounging around the outside of bars. It's not unpleasant. It's very Goodneighbor. But probably overwhelming if you're not used to it.

Grace is used to it, so she just walks on through, past those restaurants and bars, past all the street-food vendors, giant pots of noodles and grease sending up steaming clouds of salt and meat and spices. She goes as far as the main road, flagging down a cab, leaning forward to look in the window as it pulls up beside her. The driver's somewhere in his thirties, with thick black Elvis hair and a pair of precision-cut sideburns.

"Where we goin', sugar?" he says, his voice a deep Southern drawl.

She feels like waving him right on past, _don't fucking call me sugar_ , but the sky chooses that exact moment to start emptying itself again, with fat, warm droplets landing on her head and her bare forearms. So she pulls open the door, and slides into the back seat.

"Head for Nordhagen," she says. "I'll give you directions when we get there."

The driver waits for her to buckle her seatbelt before pulling away, windscreen wipers creaking noisily, rain pattering loud on the roof.

She checks her phone. Nothing but spam and a response from Danse.

  _Okay_

She's never going to get a smiley face from him, sure, but it's still oddly disappointing. No reminder of her unofficial curfew. Nothing about her job. Nothing asking about her day. Nothing asking about her, not that it's his job to give a shit.

Outside the car, the rain intensifies. Soon there's not just rivulets but actual streams of water rolling down the window next to her, so much that she can't see a thing out of it. Her world shrinks to just a metal-and-glass cage, full of the smell of air con coolant and the sharp tang of the driver's hair gel.

Nate's old brand.

A pair of bright blue eyes stare at her from the rear view mirror. It never normally bothers her, you know they're just checking you out to make sure you're not the cab driver serial killer, but today it feels rude. Invasive. Funny how you can't stop noticing these things, when you're on edge already. One look from a simple cab driver, who couldn't possibly have anything to do with the Institute, and she's on edge. Yet how long had Nate's baby blues rested on her, over those five years?

How long had the Director's been right behind them?

She looks away, tries to ignore them, but with nothing else to look at her eyes are drawn to the cab's security camera, a small plastic dome stuck to the underside of the roof. Odd how you get used to those, too. It's fine when you know where they are, when you can see the signs. Just means you have to choose where you go and make sure you don't care who sees you there. And it's not like a helpfully-placed security camera can't come in handy, once in a while.

But when they start to move? To follow you? Talk to you? How are you supposed to deal with that?

The inside of the cab glows red, as the driver pulls up at a set of lights.

"Still goin' the right way?" he asks.

"Next left," she says.

"Sure thing," he says, and flicks on the indicator with a flourish. Career cab-driver, maybe, but one who actually enjoys it. The sleeves of his t-shirt are rolled up to better show a pair of muscular arms, the right one adorned with a variety of tattoos, the left likely the same. From the look of him, she'd expected a pin-up girl, or just a naked one. Instead the largest one is an old-style soldier in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat.

"This is it," she says.

He pulls in to the curb, and pulls out a pair of horn-rimmed glasses to inspect the notes she hands him.

"Keep the change," she says.

"Well thank you," he says. "Have a nice night, now."

"Yeah," she says. "Say... do you have a card? A business card?"

He hands one back to her with a smile.

She slips it into her purse and shuffles out of the seat, into the rain. She waits until the sound of the engine has died away, then turns around and walks back to the previous block. She stands in front of the building and breathes for a moment. The rain has already soaked her shoulders and hair, and is dripping down over her forehead. She knows she looks pathetic.

She's counting on it.

It takes a minute and several presses of the button before the intercom crackles.

"What are you doing here?" says Maxson.

She looks directly into the tiny camera above the buttons. "Can I come in?" she asks.

Though the speaker is cheap and tinny, probably the cheapest thing in this whole building, she can hear his sigh. Then a click as he shuts off the microphone. And finally, a long moment later, a high-pitched buzz as the door is unlocked for her. She pushes open the door, and once inside wipes the wet from the soles of her shoes on the entrance mat. It doesn't say welcome, but at least there's no concierge to glare at her for dirtying it. Not at this time of night, anyway.

On the way up in the elevator, she checks her reflection. Strands of hair sticking wetly to her cheeks, her shirt sticking wetly to her shoulders. A far cry from the preened, precise way she'd arrived at the Prydwen that morning.

A lot of things have happened, since then.

As she approaches, he opens his door and stands behind it to let her in. His apartment is as sparsely decorated as his office, and just as lacking in character. One side of the room is dominated by a low, wide couch in front of a large television high on the wall. She doubts he ever watches it. A large desk backs onto the far wall, piled high with folders and papers and empty bottles. The screen of his computer is dark, but the keyboard is lit up from beneath. Locked, as soon as he stood up. As always. Then the kitchen, as clean and tidy as if it had never been used.

He shuts the door behind her and disappears around the corner, returning with a towel that's sky-blue in color. The shade is strangely close to the color of his eyes. If he were anyone else, she'd tease him about it. As it is, she takes it without a word.

"Well?" he says, when she's patted the worst of the rain from her hair. "What are you doing here?"

"You told me to come back," she says.

"I meant to my office," he says. "Not my home."

This isn't a home, she thinks. This is a bare, clinical collection of furniture, half of it only here because that's what people expect you to have. He probably had his PA buy it for him.

_What should I get you, sir?_

_Whatever people normally have in a home. I don't know._

"Well, you're not there, are you?" she says.

He blinks for a fraction of a second longer than is probably necessary, then holds up his hand. He's holding something in it, pale fabric. His voice is gruff as he offers it to her. "I thought you might want something dry. You can change out... you know where it is."

Grace takes it and heads into the bedroom. Again, the room is spotless. It's just a perfectly-made bed, cabinets with drawers that shut properly, and not a scrap of decoration. She unbuttons her shirt, slowly, and peels the wet fabric from her arms. She feels a spiteful urge to drop it on the floor, make the place look messy, or at least lived-in. Instead she hooks it over the handle of the wardrobe, and even that tiny disruption to the clean lines of the place makes her feel guilty.

She's just shaking out his shirt, putting her arm into the sleeve, when something in the air changes. There's no sound that she can tell, no change in the light. It's just a feeling, one of being watched. It might just be latent paranoia from the day but she turns and looks over her shoulder. Sure enough, there he is in the doorway.

She doesn't move.

He's shed his tie, already, maybe as soon as he got back from work. His collar is loose, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. That's casual, for him. His waistcoat is buttoned up tight, and he's still wearing his perfectly shiny black shoes which make no sound on the carpet as he crosses the room toward her.

On his face is a curious expression. Nervous. Hesitant. Like he's fought a battle against himself and he's not sure if he's won. He places his hands around her waist, and drops his mouth onto her bare shoulder. It's not a kiss; that's not what they have, that's not what he wants.

Does he?

No. Of course he doesn't. His mouth travels to her neck, and there it's teeth that meet her skin, while one arm holds her tight against him, and a hand cups her breast. That's much more like him.

"Don't you want to talk about today?" she asks.

"Not right now," he says. "Do you?"

She turns, and starts to undo all of the buttons that stand between her and his body. "Not right now," she says.

This is all well and good, and as she touches her hands to his skin for the first time, all very nice, but it's wrong. Or at least, not right. She's not supposed to walk straight in his front door and into his bed. That's not how it works. It's meet, argue, fuck, no need to even leave the office.

He unbuttons her skirt, and lets it drop to the floor.

That it's happened like this once before doesn't make her feel much better. One night she'd met him by chance in Diamond City. It was the kind of snooty bar she'd never normally go to but Piper was trying to catch a story and had insisted. The same Piper who had disappeared off to 'take an important phonecall' before they'd even finished their awkward hellos.

He'd been at the bar, alone, drinking whiskey. Why there, she couldn't understand. It was so far away from anywhere he'd normally go. But out of politeness, or something, she'd kept him company. Then Piper had disappeared off 'back to the office to deal with a breaking story.'

Perhaps it was politeness that saw her climbing into a cab with him not even an hour later.

There was very little politeness in the hours that followed that.

She hated to call it a mistake, but it certainly hadn't been a good idea. She hadn't planned to come back. She'd decided, unequivocably, not to.

Yet here she is, half-naked, stripping the clothes from his body. Again.

She hates herself a little for being so pleased about it.

She settles herself on top of him, his hard thighs behind her, firm stomach in front. She presses her hands flat over it, and runs one of them up the center of his chest. He doesn't know how to live, or converse, but he certainly knows how to keep himself in shape. His chest is covered in a light dusting of hair that reaches from his collarbones down to the base of his stomach. His skin is smooth and dark, marred here and there by red and white scars. She doesn't know what they're from, she's never asked. Like the two deep scars on his face, the one travelling down his whole cheek, still bearing the marks of the stitches that were used to put him back together.

Whatever it was, it must have been bad.

He's shifting impatiently under her and telling her to fuck him, so she takes him in, and gives a smooth roll of her hips. It feels good, so good, but she can't look away from his eyes. Blue as the sky, blue as the cab driver's, blue as Nate's. She closes hers and tries to will the thoughts away. But they won't go. She rolls and rocks and does whatever his hands and voice urge her to do, until he tells her to come for him. She can't. She's cold inside, even as his fingertips dig hard into her thighs, as his hips rise up to meet her, as he chases and finds his release.

She shouldn't have come here.

_Why did you, then? Did you think it would make you feel better? Chase away the shock of the day?_

With her heart pounding, she watches him. He lies under her, in her, red-faced, breathless, sprawled.

_When has a cheap fuck ever done that? You underestimated the Institute. That's on you. You screwed up. And you can't fuck that feeling away._

She rolls off him to sit on the edge of the bed. She leans down to collect her underwear, and pulls it back on. Her shirt's dry enough to wear but it stinks of Goodneighbor and rain, so she takes the shirt he'd offered before, and buttons it closed around her.  
  
It's a lie that every man wants to see a woman wearing his shirt. This one doesn't give a shit. This one cleans himself up and dresses himself without a word, without a single touch. He barely even looks at her as he heads back into the main room and pours himself a whiskey. He gestures at her with the bottle, but she shakes her head.

"I was drinking wine, before," she says. "I probably shouldn't."

She heads for the couch, and settles back. But it's still all wrong. It's supposed to be the dressing-down, _then_ the undressing. She can't sit and look icily elegant while she pisses him off, not wearing a shirt that's hanging off her like a tent.

He presses a glass of red wine into her hands, and she takes a sip. It seems to reactivate the drink from earlier, sending an angry buzz of alcohol through her veins. He sits on the coffee table and slips back into the usual patterns. Angry glares. Gruff questions that sound more like demands. When did you get there. What did you see. What happened.

"I was confronted by the Director," she says.

He'd already been moving on to the next question. His mouth snapped shut around it. "Of CIT?" he asks, when he's composed himself. "I wasn't aware they had such a position."

"No," she says. "The Institute itself."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't understand. You're saying you met with the Director of the Institute? Immediately?"

"They knew who I was," she says.

"How?" he demands. "Our documentation was foolproof."

"I didn't use it," she says.

He says nothing, only stares at her. His eyes are bright, and hard, and bore through to a point in the middle of her head. She returns the stare. No, she does more than that. She takes it, and uses it against him. Every ounce of simmering resentment that he pours into that stare gets turned around and thrown right back at him.

He looks away first. He takes his glass over to the window, staring out on the darkening Commonwealth.

"Why not?" he asks, eventually.

"They knew me," she says, "they knew my face." And she knows it will anger him, maybe even hurt him, but she says it anyway. "It was naive of you to think otherwise."

At his side, his hand clenches slowly into a fist, then releases again.

"Did you at least get the data?" he asks.

"No," she says.

He doesn't speak, but he doesn't need to. She can guess what's going through his mind.

_You failed. You failed the Brotherhood. You failed me._

And even though he hasn't said it, she finds herself resentful.

"You don't trust me at all," she says. "Do you?"

"You make it very difficult," he says. "If you're not outright ignoring my instructions, you're causing trouble. If you're not causing trouble, then I don't know what you're doing. I never know what you're doing."

"What am I supposed to be doing?" she asks. She tries to hide the hard edge in her voice, but she doesn't manage.

"You're supposed to be infiltrating the Institute," he says. "You're supposed to be obtaining data. You're supposed to be making contact with Madison Li."

"I have an office," she says, "and a desk, and a computer. I have unlimited access to everyone within it. I have the Director hanging on my every word, begging me to go back in. If that's not good enough for you then I don't know what else I can do."

He turns, slowly, rubbing his brow. "They want you back?"

"Yes," she says, bitterly. As little as she wants to go back, as much as she'd like to run away and never see those eyes again, she knows she has to. It's not about her. It's not even about Nate. She has to find out how far this goes.

And it's not just the Brotherhood who are relying on her.

"Why didn't you say?" he asks.

"I just did," she says, and it sounds weak even to her. She picks up her bag, rummages through it for her phone.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Calling Danse," she says, unlocking it. "I can't do this right now."

If he were anyone else, she'd apologise. But he wouldn't care, even if she did.

"Don't," he says.

"Fine," she replies. "I'll call a cab. A nice anonymous cab to whisk me away."

He crosses the room and takes the phone from her hand, placing it face down on the coffee table.

"That's not what I meant," he says, "And you know it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far, gimme a comment, huh? I am feeling starved of feedback. If it's negative and you're afraid to say, leave me [an anon](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/ask), I promise I won't freak out.


	7. Chapter 7

Arthur wakes to a stab of pain behind his eyes. They're dry and sore, and bloodshot, no doubt. He blinks hard, willing moisture back into them. Nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps, but at least this time the discomfort is not accompanied by the usual nausea.

Grace is still lying next to him, sprawled face-down in her pillow, her hand tangled in her own hair. The sheets are dragged low down her back, the soft ripples of her spine and ribs just visible in the soft light.

Next to me, he thinks. Hardly. There's enough space between us that we could go a whole night without touching.

Maybe that would be easier.

He sits up; she stirs but doesn't wake. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, and heads for the bathroom. He splashes his face with water, staring into the basin. How did this happen? She was going to leave. He was going to let her, then... she said his name. Danse's. Irrational, perhaps, but Arthur had been finding himself increasingly irritated by the way he'd show up at the Prydwen behind her like an obedient hound. Danse isn't hers to order around. He's a Brotherhood asset. So's she, or so he fools himself. For weeks now, he's been trying to shake the mounting feeling that she's hiding something. She knows too much, while claiming to know too little. Every time they meet she riles him nearly to the point of no return. It feels like she's trying to distract him.

So what was she up to last night, that she had to turn up on his doorstep to do it?

He returns to the bedroom, checks his watch on the nightstand. 5am. The sun is rising into a purple sky, clear and free of clouds. She's still there, still face down, but as he sits back down on the bed she turns her head and looks at him through that curtain of hair. If she were anyone else, he'd drop a kiss into the middle of her back, right between her shoulderblades. But that's not what they have. That's not what she wants. That much is clear.

It's not entirely true, either. He wouldn't do it with anyone else. It's just her.

He slides a hand under the sheets, instead, over the warm skin of her lower back.

"What's the time?" she asks, her voice muffled.

"Five," he says.

She turns onto her back, letting his fingers trail over her stomach. As he pushes his fingers down between her legs, she closes her eyes. As he joins them with his mouth and tongue, she pulls a pillow over her face to muffle herself, as if that were necessary here. Once he's done, she returns the favor, still breathing heavily, sweat beading on her skin. Part of the awkward pact of the one-night-stand, except this isn't the first night and he's lost count of the days.

Empty, calmer, he falls back on the pillows and drifts back to sleep. He dreams of her, though she's still right beside him. His office, in the Prydwen. The elevator doors slide open. Her skirt's rucked high around her hips, her legs wrapped around his waist.

Not his waist.

Danse's.

She turns and looks into his eyes, Arthur's this time. She doesn't seem to recognise him. She arches her back, and pulls open her shirt for him to see.

He wakes with a start. He reaches out to her, but she's not there. He feels a momentary panic before his ears adjust and identify the sound of running water.

Now he feels the nausea, but it's not the alcohol, it's not the lack of food. It's the dream, still there. Those blank, passionless eyes, at least hers. Somehow, even after he wakes, the detail becomes clearer. Danse's eyes, full of fire, absolutely captivated by her.

How hadn't he seen it before?

She emerges from the bathroom fully-dressed, pink-cheeked and bare-lipped. She dabs the moisture from her hair with his towel, just as she had the night before. "Sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Are you going?" he asks. He doesn't know why he asks. It's obvious that he is, and that she needs to. He needs her to be gone, too.

"I have an appointment," she says.

He frowns, he can't help it. Something else she hasn't told him about. He's supposed to know about her movements, but he never does. "For what?" he asks, and it doesn't come out as a simple question. It comes out as a demand.

She taps the side of her head with two fingers. "Brain stuff," she says, and lowers her eyes.

"What time?" he asks, feeling more and more annoyed with himself with every question that comes out more harshly than he intends.

"Ten," she says.

He checks his watch. It's only seven.

"And I have to go home first," she continues, looking down at herself with a slight sigh. She's dressed in her clothes from the day before. She hadn't planned to come here.

Maybe she'd actually wanted to.

No. _Stop it_ , he tells himself.

"I'm going to get my things," she says, and turns away.

He drags on his clothes, crumpled after being tossed onto the floor twice last night. He straps his watch around his wrist, and checks it again, even though only a couple of minutes can have passed since the last time he looked.

Out in the main room she's holding a card, typing something into her phone. She slips on her shoes, takes a few steps to stand by the window. Her voice is quiet, polite. Businesslike. A cab, then.

At least she's not calling Danse to come fetch her.

"I'll wait for them outside," she says.

When she walks by him, out of the door, he can smell it on her. Not the smoke, not Goodneighbor, not the alcohol, though all three of those things linger in the fabric of her clothes. What strikes him most is his own soap, the sharp tang of it made warm and sweet by her skin. He closes his eyes and tries not to inhale it, tries not to commit it to memory.

But he does. Because it's the last time she'll be this close. It has to be.

He waits until he hears the elevator doors close, until the numbers tick down toward the ground floor, just to make sure. Then he slams his door shut.

It doesn't make him feel any better.

He drops on the couch and buries his head in his hands, but that doesn't help either. It certainly doesn't get things done.

"Pull yourself together," he says.

Still nothing.

He forces himself up, over to his desk. His eyes drift over the bottle of whiskey. But he missed hours of work last night, hours he could ill afford to lose. He takes it, dumps it in his bottom drawer. Out of sight, out of mind.

Like her.

He laughs. Hardly.

He unlocks the computer, scans through his mail. One message draws his attention. From his top drawer he retrieves his phone. He calls up a number, top of the list, the only one he ever seems to call, and waits.

"Arthur?" comes the reply. His voice is clear, professional. Not shaken from sleep, but still surprised to hear from him at this hour.

"I need you in the office," says Arthur.

There's a pause. On the other end of the line, Danse clears his throat. "Grace..." he starts.

"I know about Grace," he says.

There's no response to that. Perhaps Danse suspects. Perhaps he spent his night fretting about her, imagining her in the arms of another man. Arthur hopes so. He hopes Danse sees the marks on her neck and knows he can't touch her.

He shouldn't touch her anyway, that's not his job.

Not that that stopped _him_.

"I expect to see you there at nine," he says, and hangs up.

That doesn't leave him much time.

He heads for the bathroom and strips, dropping the clothes straight in the laundry basket. In the shower, his hand rests on the faucet. The cubicle is still wet from earlier, with a few long strands of her hair floating in the base of it. He washes them away before washing himself, scrubbing her from his skin, every trace of her.

In his haste he leaves wet footprints over the bathroom floor and then the bedroom carpet. She's still here, or her presence is. He tears the sheets from the bed, ripping pillows from their cases, balling it all up and throwing it in the laundry too. Along with the shirt, the towel, everything she'd touched.

It's still not enough.

Back in the main room, he scrubs the lipstick marks from her glass, and returns it to the cupboard. The remainder of the bottle of wine still sits on the side, mostly full. He never drinks wine. He only got it in case...

He can't even admit it to himself. He pours it down the drain. The stench of it fills the air, assaulting his nose. The imagery assaults him too; red liquid splashing up the sides of a stark white basin.

He tries to blot it out but the blade slices through his skin. First one cheek. Then the other. And it hacks into his side before he can bring himself back.

"It's wine," he says, through gritted teeth. "It's just wine." He washes it down, washes it away, the cold water on his hands helping him focus. He dries his hands on the towel around his waist, and casts an eye over the place. Like she'd never been there. Aside from the desk, like nobody had been there.

Much better.

Feeling calmer, he dresses, properly this time, every extra button another layer of armor against the world. He inspects himself in the mirror, smoothing back his hair. He should shave, soon, or at least tidy himself up.

He looks himself in the eyes.

_Fuck it._

  
On the drive to the office, the morning sun burns harshly through his car windows. He stabs at the air-con, having more luck than he had on the way back from the police station, but feeling no less agitated. When he reaches the office he makes himself a coffee, as large as he can and syrupy-strong. He can almost feel the grounds scraping his tongue and throat as he drinks it.

Something else to wash her away.

He taps through emails, deleting half of them unread, and he's starting to feel better, much better, until a gentle ping comes from the elevator out in the hall. His eyes are drawn to it, and as the doors start to slide open he feels a jolt of panic. The sick feeling from his dream returns.

But it's just Danse. Alone. Of course. The man enters the office, oblivious, nothing in his hands now he's not being forced to fetch and carry things for Grace.

He should really stop calling her that.

_Adams_.

There will be a gun, hidden away under that suit, invisible under the well-cut jacket. No knife, though, those aren't permitted in the building at all. Presumably a wallet, maybe some keys, to a car and to Grace's... Adams' house. He stands, and looks expectant.

"Sit down," says Arthur. "We're waiting for one more."

Danse nods, and sits.

Arthur shuffles files on his desk, making himself look busy until the elevator pings again. Quinlan, this time. He's a tall, greying man with old-fashioned spectacles that seem to reflect a need to look respectable. His shoulders are rounded by years of hunching over ledgers, or probably just keyboards now. His brow is furrowed, his tie loose and untidy, and he holds a dark grey folder in his hand. He stalks forward, and drops it on the desk.

"What's this?" asks Arthur.

"During the course of my investigations," says Quinlan. "I've turned up some information on something called the Railroad."

Arthur already knows this, it was in the initial email. He doesn't reply.

"Its an organisation," says Quinlan, "based on a somewhat loose interpretation of the word."

"Get to the point," says Arthur.

"On the face of it, it's a relatively obscure charity," he continues. "Ostensibly for the purpose of rehabilitation of ex-chem-users, particularly those with resultant psychological problems."

Arthur urges himself to be calm. "I presume this is relevant to our project, in some way?"

"Perhaps," says Quinlan. "There are certain irregularities," and he gestures at the folder, so Arthur opens it and starts to leaf through. The first few pages are printed sheets in some obscure accounting format that he has no hope of understanding. That's why he hired Quinlan in the first place.

He sits back in his chair. "Such as?"

"The first few pages of the file shows funds travelling between multiple small companies that fold after a small amount of time," says Quinlan. "Funds that ultimately disappear."

"Petty money-laundering," says Arthur, his eyes drifting back to his computer. Ten more emails while they've been talking. "I'm still not sure of the relevance."

Quinlan folds his hands together in front of himself. "The patterns are very similar to those we've seen in CIT's accounts, at least those to which we have access."

And at that, Quinlan regains his full attention. "The Institute," he says. "Do you think they're related?"

"I'm not certain," says Quinlan. "But there are a couple of names in common," and at that his eyes settle on Arthur's as though there's more of a story to be told.

"Alright," he says, carefully. "Care to share?"

"Not right now," says Quinlan. "I'd rather wait until Ms Adams returns with some more concrete data. Has she met with any success, there?"

He's taken back to the night before. She'd said no. But that hadn't been the whole story.

He can't exactly tell the whole story now.

"No," says Arthur. "Not yet."

Quinlan re-opens the folder and flips through the pages to the end. Behind the sheets of numbers and one or two scanned newspaper clippings are six photographs, grainy and dark, showing two people in an unidentifiable location. A bar, perhaps. One of them a woman, long hair and dark clothing. The other, just a man with dark hair and a biker-style jacket.

She's placing a note under a glass. The man's slipping it into his pocket. A simple exchange. It could be anything. A stolen tip. A hook-up.

Danse's brow furrows, and he reaches out to spread the photographs on the desk.

Quinlan points at the male. "We believe this is one of their operatives."

"And the woman?"

"Unknown. You can see the quality of the photographs. This is just to demonstrate the difficulty of tracking them. It was pure chance that a junior operative was in the location and saw something that seemed suspicious."

"Alright," says Arthur. "Dig deeper. If there's a link, I want you to find it."

Quinlan nods. When he's gone, leaving Danse and himself alone, Arthur picks up his mug.

The coffee is cold.

"Arthur," says Danse.

_Don't you Arthur me_ , he thinks. _Not after what you've done._

The thought is so precise, and so harsh in its irrationality that he almost stops breathing. It was just a dream. A fabrication of his mind. Why is it still affecting him? Why can't he dismiss it? Why can't he even look at the man?

He stands, abruptly, and takes up a spot in front of the window. Seeing the Commonwealth spread out below, miniature vehicles travelling the streets, sparks of sunlight reflected up toward him, normally it's soothing. Not today.

"What is it?" he asks, trying to bring himself back to the conversation.

"I believe I recognise the location," says Danse.

"Is that so?" says Arthur.

"It's in Goodneighbor," says Danse. "It seems like the kind of place for underhand deals to take place."

His mind is reeling, he can't work out which way is up. This needs to be investigated, and he needs someone he can trust to do it. Right now he feels as if he can't trust anyone.

But at least if Danse is there, he's not with her.

"I want you to look into it," says Arthur.

"Reconnaissance?" says Danse. "That's not my area of expertise. And what about Grace?"

Yes, Danse. What _about_ Grace.

"You've said it before," says Arthur, pushing the thought aside. "Adams can look after herself. Besides, now she has access to the Institute, you can hardly keep trailing after her."

Realising his tone is too sharp, he takes a sip of the coffee, disgusting as it is. "This is now your top priority," he continues. "Find out who they are, and what they're doing."

"Affirmative," says Danse. "Should I consider my security detail to be terminated? I can collect my personal effects immediately."

Arthur considers this. On the one hand, it would keep Danse well away from her. On the other, well. He'll have even less of an idea what she's up to.

It was only a dream, anyway. He can't understand why he's being so irrational.

"No," he says. "But you need to stay sharp. She's been getting away with too much. You need to keep a better eye on her."

"I do the best I can," says Danse.

"Maybe that's not good enough."

There's a pause, only a brief one, but one that says Danse had to gather his thoughts before replying. "You know her as well as I do," he says.

Arthur breathes, slowly, bites back the answer that rushes to his lips.

_I really fucking hope not._

Now there's some emotion in Danse's voice, but Arthur can't tell if it's irritation or admiration. "You could put her in a locked room with no windows and she'd still find her way out."

Arthur drops his mug back onto the desk, and finally meets Danse's eyes. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," he says.


	8. Chapter 8

"Danse?"

Grace waits for a moment, listening, but there's no reply. She pushes open the kitchen door, cautiously craning her neck around it.

Nothing.

Well, not quite. Dogmeat blinks at her from the table, letting out a tiny mew when Grace reaches out to scratch her ears.

"What have you done with him?" she asks.

But the cat just jumps down to the floor and pads away.

Grace has lost count of the number of times she's come home to find the cat curled up on Danse's lap, or at his side. He'd always look up, guiltily, and push the cat away. So she'd taken to making too much noise as she approached, slamming doors, letting out curses. He'd still do it, but the push would be less unceremonious and the cat far less indignant about it.

Point is, if the cat's alone, he can't be here at all.

She can't remember the last time she returned to the house to find him absent. If he wasn't right behind her, or pushing past to open the door for her, he was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for her to return. Angrily or otherwise, depending on the behavior that had led up to her own absence.

There's no mug left out, no half-drunk cafetiere on the side, but there is water beaded in the bottom of the basin. So he has been there fairly recently. He must have been called away, but when, or by whom, she doesn't know.

Arthur seemed the most likely culprit. But when had he had the chance?

She doesn't have the luxury of time to think about it, so she dismisses the thought and moves on. In the bedroom, she stuffs some things into a bag, switches her shirt for a fresh one and checks her appearance in the mirror. She looks tired, and anxious.

She is.

She pulls the curtains to one side. Outside in the road, the cab is still waiting, engine silent. The driver is checking his hair in the rear view mirror, so he can wait a minute longer. She applies a fresh face of makeup, and with the slick of red in place on her lips, she angles her face from side to side. Better. Still tired, but now, she's the Grace who gets things done. Now she's the Grace who'll show the Institute a thing or two.

After her appointment, anyway.

  
Carrington and Amari's clinic is in the North End, behind a faded red door, unmarked but for a tiny brass plaque in the wall next to it. It's just three rooms; one for each doctor, and one storage room that is kept firmly locked. Just in case.

As she enters, Carrington looks up from his computer. His eyes sit on her for a few seconds, his typically accusatory expression deepening when he recognises her.

"You," he says. "I suppose you'd better sit down."

Carrington has little patience for anyone, including his patients or their case-workers, but he has next to none for Grace.

Whatever. Add him to the list.

She sits, placing her bag neatly to one side, waiting as he continues working. He types steadily for a few minutes, then taps a key with a flourish and turns slightly to face her. Something of a concession. "What's this about?" he asks, though the question is stated more as a demand. The tone is uncomfortably similar to Maxson's.

She taps the side of her head. "The implants," she says. "I have more information, and a lot more questions."

His lips drawn tight, he watches her for a moment longer. "You know that's Amari's field," he says.

"I do," she says. "But she's not here. I'd value your perspective, anyway."

He sighs. Her reassurance hasn't put him at ease, not in the least. "Go on," he says, his voice dripping with reluctance.

"I've been into the Institute," she says, "and spoken to their Director."

He couldn't look less impressed if he tried.

She persists. "The chips aren't just recorders, like we thought. They can manipulate memories, too."

He taps a finger on the desk, irritably. "That sounds extremely far-fetched," he says. "Idiotic, in fact."

She tries not to react, biting back the words that spin into her mind.

_Stop being a fucking asshole and help me._

He sighs, and rubs his brow. "But," he says. "It wouldn't be out of character for the Institute to be interfering with people's brains. Perhaps they got bored of trying it through chemical means."

Grace almost jumps out of her skin as the door flies open to reveal Doctor Amari. "Oh, there you are," she says. "I only just got your message. What have you found? The agent was quite insistent that I leave my breakfast behind."

"The memory chips," says Grace. "We think they may be using them for more than just recording."

"Oh goodness," says Amari, sitting down, leaning forward with wide eyes. "How so?"

"Does this conversation have to take place in my office?" says Carrington. He gestures pointedly at his computer.

"You're not even slightly curious?" asks Amari.

Carrington sighs, but doesn't insist on her leaving, so Grace summarizes. They already knew that data from the implants could be retrieved, though it generally involved sticking one's hands inside the victim's skull, which was obviously a one-time procedure.

"Do you think it would be possible to access those memories," says Grace, "without having to extract it?"

Extract it, she thinks, with a sense of morbid amusement. That's... that a very clinical way of putting the procedure.

"I find that highly likely," says Amari. "Our equipment is patched together from old parts, based on a chip that had already been extracted. But with the correct equipment, and already having access to the encryption keys, it would theoretically be possible to see these memories while the chip was active and in position. Possibly at the very point of being made. Maybe even remotely."

"I disagree," says Carrington. "These chips are passive systems, and they must be to remain undetectable. They can't possibly have the range necessary for constant tracking. How do you think they manage that, satellites? Radio waves?"

"I'm not a telephone engineer," says Amari. "Don't look at me. We need Tom to answer that."

"Tom's not here," says Carrington.

"No," says Grace, trying to stop the bickering. "He's not. So let's shelve that and move on to part two. Do you think it would be possible to manipulate memories, to encourage certain personality traits?"

"Such as?" says Amari.

"Make someone more docile," says Grace. "Less nervous. Take away a traumatic memory to stop a learned fear response. Add one to encourage bravery, I don't know."

She thinks, suddenly, of the blank-eyed receptionist. And the Director's words.

_A brilliant soldier, but a nervous man._

_We proposed a... solution._

"Well," says Amari, "it's certainly a fascinating idea. Response to situations is strongly informed by memory. But, how would you know which memories to choose? Where would you get them? Even if it were as simple as recording a television program and copyng it into a chip, it would require extensive testing. Where would they get the subjects?"

"Oh, I don't know," says Grace, catching Carrington's eye. "Secret deals with the military and targeting the vulnerable?"

Carrington's expression is grim. "That is what the bastards do with the chems."

Amari is musing, her hand on her chin, tapping her lips with a single finger. "I can't imagine that it would be anything other than highly traumatic to have extra memories in one's head," she says. "There is potential for severe psychological disturbance. It would be extremely valuable to see any medical transcripts they have. Are you... going back?"

Grace nods. "I'm on my way there now. As soon as I find anything, I'll bring it to you. Keep your eyes open and your heads down."

"Well I for one was about to go dancing in the street with this new information," says Carrington, swivelling his chair back toward his monitor.

"Doctor Carrington," says Amari, shocked. "I certainly hope you weren't."

\---

"Can I help you?"

This doctor, the third one Grace has seen today, is stood at a high desk, tapping on a keyboard and frowning intently at her monitor. Her lab coat is immaculate, her hair pinned up into a neat but old-fashioned style. A few wisps and strands are pulled loose around her ears when she drags her safety goggles from her eyes to let them hang around her neck, but otherwise she's a model of neatness and professionalism.

Grace enters the room, and takes a couple of steps toward her. "Doctor Li?" she asks, a questioning tone in her voice as though she hadn't read the name on the door or been repeatedly drilled on identifying the woman by sight. Quinlan had been extremely thorough in that regard, probably at Maxson's insistence.

"I'm Grace Adams," she says. "The Director..."

"Oh," says Li, sharply, interrupting. "You. Yes. We were told you might come around for an... orientation. New starters usually have a guide, though. Don't you?"

And at that, she looks pointedly at the doorway.

"No," says Grace. "It's not an orientation, as such. I just wanted to come around and introduce myself in person."

"Well hello," says Li. "Nice to meet you. I'd love to chat but I'm very busy."

The doctor returns to her terminal.

Grace waits. She doesn't have to wait very long. She never does.

"Listen," says Li, her eyes flickering up to Grace's. "I don't want to be rude but I know why you're here. I know you have contacts within the Brotherhood. Don't try to hide it, and don't try to trick me into revealing anything. I have neither the time nor patience to argue with you."

"I'm not hiding anything," says Grace. She holds up her namebadge, freshly laminated, still slightly warm and smelling of plastic. Grace Adams, in the Institute's own font. "I wouldn't have given my real name if I were."

Li takes a deep breath. "Alright," she says. "Sorry. I guess. It's just that I've been looking over my shoulder for almost a decade, waiting for the Brotherhood to decide what to do about me. What do they want? I assume they sent you."

Li had worked for the Brotherhood back in the Capital, at least a decade ago, before any of this Institute crap had really started. Well. Probably a long time after it, if Nate was anything to go by. But she'd defected, as Maxson put it, or 'taken the opportunity of a lifetime up in the Commonwealth' as Li had more likely written in her resignation letter.

But you don't get to just leave the Brotherhood. Not as easily as that.

"No," says Grace. "Well. They did try to. But I'm here on my own behalf."

From the look on the doctor's face, she knows that story too.

"Look," says Li, moving out from behind her desk, lowering her voice. "I just want to do my research in peace. The Institute have given me access to technology beyond my wildest dreams. I could never have received the funding to do this on my own."

"Fair enough," says Grace. "Doesn't it bother you, though? It all being so top-secret? That you'll never be published?"

Li's mouth falls open. After a few moments of silence she laughs; a short, mirthless sound, about as far from a laugh as it's possible to get while still being able to call it one. "Are you trying to appeal to my scientific vanity?" she asks, incredulous. "My God. What's next? Holding me personally responsible for the death of your husband?"

Grace looks her right in the eye, and holds her stare. "Were you?"

"No," says Li, hotly. "I was not. I wasn't even here when he was brought onto the programme, and if you really have anything to do with the Brotherhood you should know that already."

Grace nods, slowly, and lets the doctor simmer down before replying. "It's not about Nate," she says. "Not any more. Do you have any idea of the psychological impact of these things? Do the subjects?"

She resists using the word victims. Somehow.

Li gives a little shake of her head, and averts her eyes. "All subjects are willing volunteers and go through rigorous testing for psychological suitability," she says.

"Really, though?" asks Grace.

"You don't undergo invasive brain surgery on a whim," says Li, her tone sharp.

"No," says Grace. "You don't. Some would say you'd have to be out of your mind altogether."

How many of the chems created by the Institute, spread around by CIT, have that effect? Li doesn't reply. Perhaps she's thinking the same thing. The averted eyes and the awkward way she's clicking the top of her pen tell Grace that Li's feeling guilty.

"Doctor Li," she says. "It's all kids, straight out of school. Military personnel who can't say no. Immigrants. People of all backgrounds in desperate situations. You're targeting the vulnerable."

"I'm not doing anything of the sort," says Li, her eyes burning.

"It's not right," says Grace. "And you know it isn't. By staying here, regardless of the potential good you might do, you're condoning those methods. I get that you want to do your research, but there must be a better way."

There's a long pause, until Li lets out a measured breath, through pursed lips. "Fine," she says. "What do you want?"

Grace reaches in her pocket and pulls out the prepared thumbstick. "Data," she says.

"Don't you have a terminal of your own?" asks Li.

Grace holds her gaze for a little longer.

"Alright," says Li. "I get it. I get it. Just... don't name me. And I can't do this for you again."

The doctor pulls the goggles from around her neck, dislodging more strands of hair from her bun. With the expression of dismay on her face, she looks a far cry from the confident, self-possessed woman in the Brotherhood's file on her. With a tiny shake of her head, she stalks out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

Grace rolls the thumbstick in her fingers, suddenly nervous in case Li might be headed for some sort of security, not that she'd seen any on this floor of the building.

No point worrying about it now.

"Three two one go," she says, and slams it in the USB port.

As the program works, she flicks through some of the screens of data through which it's running. Piper had already dug out some of the more blatantly predatory adverts and flyers, which were damning enough by themselves, but here was the proof of it. Entry forms. Initial evaluations. Medical transcripts.

Just what Amari wanted.

Photographs fly by, nearly all of them of young men, half of them already with the look of chem-addiction in their eyes. Most of them from the Commonwealth, but some from nearby states. Now a batch of them in military uniforms, now a dozen in orange prison jumpsuits. Some seeming too young even to be able to sign their own release forms.

It doesn't take long for the stick to be filled, protesting about its state with a series of beeps and irate pop-ups. Grace pulls it out of the machine, and drops it into her bag, into a small gap between the leather and the lining material.

Then she pulls out another stick, and repeats the process.

Tucking that one into her pocket, she picks up her bag and heads out into the corridor. Li is still nowhere to be seen, so Grace makes her way up to the Director's office.

He's waiting for her.

He smiles warmly, and takes both her hands in both of his, again, holding onto them for a period of time that only just falls short of discomforting. He signals to the chair in front of it, a glass of water already on the desk for her, and shuffles around to his side of the desk.

"So," he says. "I gather you've been making yourself at home?"

"Yes," she says, arranging herself in her seat, giving him a warm smile.

"And?" he says. "What's your decision? I don't like to push you, obviously, but time is of the essence."

Work with us, he'd asked. Use those skills of yours to help benefit mankind. She didn't want to. It sounded like the worst possible solution. But what better way to influence the course of the Institute than from within?

What better way to bring it down.

She takes a deep breath, and taps her fingers on the edge of her glass. "I accept," she says. "The technology and sheer brainpower contained within these walls is simply astonishing. I might not agree with some of your methods. But perhaps I can help you improve on them."

"Excellent," says the Director. His eyes are damp, and slightly bloodshot. "I was so hoping you'd agree."

He raises his hand in an imperious gesture. A figure appears at Grace's side, tall and clad in dark clothing. His movements are almost silent despite his size and obvious power.

She stands, and extends her hand toward the newcomer.

He remains utterly motionless.

"This is X6," says Shaun. "He's our best operative. He'll be assigned to you for the duration of your employment with us. A security detail, if you will."

_Another fucking babysitter_ , she thinks. _Anyone would think I can't look after myself._

She smiles, sweetly, still holding out her hand.

The Brotherhood had assigned her their top operative, too. She'd managed to give that one the slip when she'd needed to, without even breaking a sweat.

She just hopes she can avoid developing a ridiculous crush on this one.

Finally, X6 does take her hand and shake it. His grip is firm, his palm warm and dry against hers. If he's looking her in the eye as he does it, she has no idea, his sunglasses are too dark, and reflect herself and the flourescent lights set in the ceiling. She feels a rush of anger, an urge to demand he removes the glasses and try to stare her down properly.

But instead, she averts her eyes, and leaves her hand limp and weak in his. This is hardly the time to start a battle of strength.

That will have to wait for later.


	9. Chapter 9

X6-88 stands in the doorway of the Director's office. His task there depends entirely on the words Adams says in the next few moments. If she says yes, and agrees to help the Institute, he'll be accompanying her out on her first operation for them. If she does not, he'll be escorting her from the building. Permanently.

He can't hear her from this distance; the sound-proofing of the offices stops voices travelling too far. So he waits until the Director summons him into the room, with a typically imperious gesture. It's not until the old man smiles indulgently at Adams that X6 understands quite which of the scenarios has come to pass.

_Welcome to the Institute_ , he thinks, sourly.

Adams holds out her hand for X6-88 to shake. He feels a strange inclination to refuse it, but on detecting a slight frown from the Director, he resists that urge. He is disappointed and yet unsurprised to find that her grip is weak, her hand cold and damp. She fails to meet his eyes, looking down at the floor instead. Following her gaze, he notes that her legs are bare under a neat but impractical skirt, and her feet are clad in high heels.

She will only slow him down.

He prevents the surge of irritation from affecting his expression. He does not require an assistant for a simple retention. He certainly does not have need of a hanger-on in high heels and gaudy lipstick. He made that case the moment he received the order; not strenuously, but clearly. The old man dismissed his concerns, telling X6 that he was sure she could handle herself, and insisting that he obey his orders.

The Director's unusual treatment of Adams is the object of some discussion in the back rooms and more secluded corners of the Institute. Some attribute it to misplaced guilt for the death of her husband. Some go so far as to call it an obsession, suggesting improper usage of recorded memories. X6 does not participate in these discussions, of course. He is of the opinion that they should be shut down as soon as they begin, the offenders punished for their indiscretion. But his orders while within the Institute building itself are simply to observe. So that is what he does.

While he does not take action, he cannot deny that it is rare to see a repeat offender.

The Director smiles and dismisses them both. "X6-88 will brief you en route, I'm sure," he says. "Good luck."

She walks ahead of him out of the office, then after only a few steps toward the elevator she turns and glances at him over her shoulder. "Hold on," she says. "I need to drop by my room."

It is becoming harder for X6 to conceal his annoyance. It is already ten minutes later than he had intended to leave. The intel had suggested only a brief window of opportunity at Libertalia; this delay is already eating into it.

But, wordlessly, he follows her through the corridors. He waits outside her room, arms folded, staring straight ahead. A passing cleaner lowers her eyes and scurries past at the sight of him. He pays him little attention, running over the plan one more time. With any luck, Adams will not interfere with it too much. What little he has been told of her suggests that she is not entirely lacking in skill for this kind of operation; she eliminated two of the Institute's best operatives, after all. And, he concedes, that she located the Institute at all is somewhat impressive.

None of this means that he wants her there.

At last she reappears, pulling her hair back from her face with a plain band. Her impractical apparel has been replaced by simple, form-fitting clothing allowing for speed and flexibility, and flat shoes.

However, her lips seem even brighter.

Perhaps it is just an illusion.

  
"So," she says, a few minutes later, settling into the passenger seat of his car. She shades her eyes with her hand to watch the road ahead. "Where are we going?"

"Libertalia," says X6. "It is a bar."

She nods. "I know it. Nautical theme, right? Buoys and ropes and weird salty cocktails with plastic fish in them."

The Director has instructed X6 to give Adams any and all pertinent information relating both to the mission and to the Institute, and in turn to gather as much as he can from her. X6 had requested a more precise definition of 'pertinent', but in reply he had only been urged to use his own discretion. During the briefing, it had been clear to X6 that the Director was struggling. In fact, he feared that his decision-making skills were beginning to be affected by whatever ailment was afflicting his body.

It would explain quite a lot, but X6-88 hopes the pattern of irrational decisions does not continue.

"The owner of the bar is a member of a testing program," he says. "He has decided he no longer wishes to be part of that program. Our job is to change his mind."

"What's his name?" she asks. She hooks her foot up onto the car seat, trapping it under her other knee. He glances at it sharply; there had been an extremely strong smell of oil in the car park, strong enough to be from a spill. He hopes she is not transferring grease onto the fabric.

"His subject number is B5-92," says X6, trying to remain focused. "He goes by the name of Gabriel now. He was involved in early testing. Several members of his group disappeared; most of them have since been retrieved, but not all of them. He is the latest to be traced."

"Wow," she says. "Is that the Institute admitting to a screw-up?"

"No," he says, sharply. "It is a testing program. Not all tests will succeed. In fact, some tests are designed with that possibility in mind. Stress-testing, I believe they call it in other fields."

He's concentrating on the road, but he can tell that she's turned to face him. He glances over, just for a moment, to find her eyes wide and her eyebrows high. By the time he can look back again, the expression has melted away and she is looking back at the road, disinterested. She remains silent until they reach their destination.

He has seen pictures of the location, so the weathered oars and pollution-stained life-preservers hung up around the ramshackle building are not a surprise. Adams points out a parking spot in front of the building; he ignores her, instead driving the car into a discreet location around the back of the bar, out of view of the main road.

"I used to work here, you know," she says, getting out of the car and looking up at the building. "Back when I, uh, left college."

"Pouring drinks?" asks X6.

She snorts. "Yeah, no. Let's just say that dock used to see some activity out of hours. One of the best routes for getting chems into the city, though it doesn't look like they've done much of that recently."

She kicks one of the picnic tables on the boardwalk, before walking away without another word.

Inside the bar, she stops in the middle of the room. "Hasn't changed at all," she says, looking around with a slight frown. "Still looks like shit, anyway."

X6 ignores her, and heads toward the bar. A young girl with bright red hair is absently wiping a filthy cloth over the counter, more interested in some kind of sporting event on a television up on the wall.

"Ma'am," says X6. "We need to speak with Gabriel."

"He's not here," she says, chewing gum at him in a faintly combative manner.

X6 removes his sunglasses, and asks her again.

She rolls her eyes, and points to a door in the opposite corner of the bar. It leads onto a set of rickety stairs leading upwards, with thick rope attached to the wall as a handrail. A step creaks alarmingly under his weight; he reaches out his hand to the rope to steady himself. It is sticky to the touch, and when he pulls his fingers away they are covered in grease. He pulls out a handkerchief, wipes his hand clean, and continues upwards.

At the top of the stairs is a small room, brightly lit from windows that back onto a wooden balcony. It overhangs the harbor and likely contravenes building regulations. But there does not appear to be a fire escape or an easy route to the ground. The only way out is past Adams and himself.

Gabriel is standing on this balcony with two men, both tall and well-built. Accomplices, perhaps, but X6 does not recognize their faces from Institute records. They seem on edge, but ill-equipped to deal with any escalation. The worst kind of adversary to deal with: the incompetents. You can never be sure if they're trigger-happy or faint-hearted until it's too late.

Adams steps forward. She pulls something from her top pocket, and shows it to the three men. Her Institute badge, the one that gives full access to every part of the building. Something else against which he had recommended. Something else upon which the Director had insisted.

"I think you know why we're here," she says.

Gabriel laughs, quietly, and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah," he says. "I do. And I'm not interested."

"I think you know that's not an acceptable answer."

"Listen, man," says Gabriel. "I did everything the Institute wanted of me, for long enough. Now I'm done. I'm making my own way. I'm doin' pretty well, actually, this bar is very popular. I'm making a good amount of money here... in fact, I could see that some of that makes its way into your back pockets right now. All you have to do is leave me be."

She folds her arms. "Gabriel," she says, "we can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

X6 was not expecting her to take the lead like this. He was not expecting the hard, commanding tone that has appeared in her voice.

Nonetheless, it is not working. Gabriel looks down on her with a sickly, patronising smile that X6 finds faintly nauseating.

"You're wasted on these Institute assholes," he says, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial mutter. "Why don't you come work for me, instead. This isn't just a bar, you know? I've got all sorts of interesting roles you can probably fill."

A click, a flash of movement, and almost before X6 can focus his eyes he realises that there's a pistol pointed directly at Gabriel's face.

"You just lost the easy option," says Adams, perfectly calm.

"Woah, woah, woah," says Gabriel, raising his hands. "There's no need to overreact."

The two accomplices stand motionless. One is entirely taken aback, his mouth wide open in shock. But the other has his hand slightly extended, as though it has paused on its way to a weapon.

"Ma'am," says X6, accordingly. "I urge caution."

"No," she says, ignoring him. "There's not. This is the moderately easy way. I have a sliding scale. How far do you want to push me?"

"Come on," says Gabriel, no longer smiling, but still resisting. "I'm serious here. I'm not going back. Do you have any idea how much trouble this thing has caused me? The headaches? The fucked-up memories? There was another person in here with me. And I fuckin' hated him."

"Shut up," she says. "I'm not in the mood. Come with us. Now."

"He said no," says the braver of the two men, taking a step toward her.

She turns her head. The gun doesn't waver at all. Somehow, her gaze is enough to still him, and to make Gabriel acquiesce.

"Fine," he says, holding up his hands. "I'll come with you. Just... ah, shit. Just don't hurt anyone."

A peaceful resolution.

Or perhaps not. The signs are there as soon as they exit into the stairwell. X6 puts a steadying hand on the man's shoulder, which brings him close enough to see the sweat beading on Gabriel's skin. His breathing is shallow, the rate of it elevated. He looks around himself sharply, eyes darting around and down at the ground, never still, all the way to the back exit to which Adams leads them.

Immediately outside the door, Gabriel ducks away from his hand and breaks into a run.

X6 launches after him, accelerating quickly, his feet hitting loud on the boardwalk then more quietly on concrete. Adams keeps up for a few moments, then darts off to one side, disappearing from view.

He can't afford to wonder where she's headed, as Gabriel puts on a burst of speed. He is fast and nimble, turning a sharp right into a dark alley, the entrance to which is almost entirely blocked up with empty crates. X6 follows after him, his own breath now coming fast, not quite turning in time to make it through the narrow gap and crashing into the crates as he corners. A shock of pain flashes through his arm; he's briefly stunned by the sharpness of it.

By the time he recovers himself and comes out into the alleyway, Adams has Gabriel backed up against a dumpster, clearly having anticipated his route and found a shortcut. While he is impressed by her actions, he notes that Gabriel is holding something behind his back, something he is trying to hide from her.

"Ma'am," says X6, urgently, but all it does is distract her. She looks away from Gabriel, who pulls his hand out to reveal a large chunk of splintered wood that he half-hurls, half-smacks into the side of her head, hard. With an angry curse, she recoils, but as Gabriel tries to push her aside and escape she balances herself and cracks the palm of her hand into his face. His head snaps back sharply, smacking into the side of the dumpster with a crash. His hands fly up, and so do Adams', but he only cups his under his nose, trying to catch the flow of blood that's streaming from it, and already soaking the front of his shirt.

X6 dives in and grabs the back of Gabriel's collar. "Am I going to have to restrain you?"

Gabriel shakes his head.

He drags the man back down the alley, pleased to note that he had left the car in an advantageous location, and pushes him onto the back seat. Not unkindly, but firmly, and mentally cursing the blood that spatters over the seating. The car had only just been returned to him after the last retention incident. Gabriel sits, slumped, shoulders rounded, staring at the back of the seat in front of him as though someone had found a way to switch him off.

Outside the car is less calm. Adams leans on the side of it, shaking her head, muttering to herself. Blood is trickling down the side of her face, drying and matting in strands of her hair that have broken free of the band. A deep gash runs up over her ear. It likely contains splinters, and almost certainly requires medical attention.

"Let me look at that," he says, reaching out his hand to push away the hair.

"I'm fine," she says, and leans away from his hand.

"Ma'am, I advise you let me look at it," he says, but she bats away his hand and turns on him with a fierce glare.

X6 knows that different people react in different ways to the adrenaline rush of combat, whether trained or untrained. She appears to be the sort to keep throwing punches, long after the battle is over.

"Fine," he says, backing away, lowering his hand. "Get in the car."

  
She declined medical attention at the Institute, too, pulling her hair loose and dragging it forward over the wound while they returned Gabriel to the SRB. She refused also to report in to the Director, insisting that she needed to observe the re-integration process.

And so it is that he is driving her to her home as the clock ticks toward eight in the evening. They travel in silence, Adams with her head propped up on her hand, elbow wedged against the window frame. Her hand occasionally reaches toward her pocket, but is drawn back before touching it. She is resisting looking at or checking for something. It is the second sign of nerves that he has seen from her.

It is most likely due to the headwound. He dismisses any concerns.

He pulls into the driveway. Almost before the car comes to a full stop, she's out of the vehicle and heading toward the house on unsteady feet. She unlocks the door, pushing it hard, sending it crashing heavily into the wall.

Before she can enter, he holds her back with his arm. He performs a quick sweep. The house is silent, all rooms empty but for a small cat that brushes past his ankles and pads up to Adams, letting out a series of tiny, pathetic sounds. She drops down beside it and begins to talk some sort of nonsense at the creature. She refers to it by the name 'Dogmeat', which to him appears to be something of a cruel name to give a cat.

"Ma'am," he says.

She rises and looks him in the eyes. She looks tired.

He's tired, too.

"Do you need to stay here?" she asks.

The Director has not given direct instructions for this particular circumstance, so he's not immediately sure how to respond. On the one hand, it's common knowledge that a Brotherhood operative has been frequenting her house. Assuming that their intention is to keep her safe, for X6 to stay also would be a duplication of effort.

On the other, the Brotherhood operative is obviously not here right now.

"I have a couch," she says. "It's pretty comfy. Sorry, I'm running out of rooms to put you assh... guys... in."

It's quite clear what she was about to say. Assholes. That's how she sees them. People only tasked to look after her safety. Assholes.

"That won't be necessary," he says. "I will see you tomorrow."

He stalks from the house and to the car, which is once again filled with the stench of blood and fear. He feels a stab of pain in his head. Shadows rise in his peripheral vision. He presses the flesh of his palm over his eye, and breathes steadily, in through his nose, out through his mouth. When the pain abates enough for him to see again, he turns his key in the ignition.

He looks around the area. It's unfamiliar, and he's having trouble trying to remember why he came here in the first place. His hand reaches out to the sat nav, to the only address that's stored in it.

The Institute.

They'll look after him.

They always do.


	10. Chapter 10

**Grace.**

The word seems to come from a long distance away. It takes her a while to remember the significance, to recognize it as her name. It feels just like it did when it was new. Just a word, that was suddenly supposed to mean more than it had the day before. As much as she wanted it, as much as she wanted to be it, it still doesn't feel like _her_.

Nothing ever has.

**Grace.**

It's a man's voice saying it; deep and resonant. For a moment she hopes it might be Nate's. But it can’t be, because he’s gone. She remembers that, at least. Besides, as the word floats into her consciousness again, more urgently this time, she knows the voice can't be his. It's too deep, too authoritative, too _serious_.

Danse.

She opens her eyes, but they automatically flicker shut against a light as bright as a bare bulb in an interrogation room. She forces them back open, and tries to focus on him. He's leaning over her, closer than she was expecting. The corners of his mouth are downturned, his brow furrowed in concern.

"What happened?" he asks. A hand appears at the edge of her vision. Fingertips brush against her cheek, stroking back her hair from her face. Tears sting at her eyes at the tenderness of the touch. She can't remember the last time someone touched her so gently.

That's not quite true. She can, but she doesn't want to. It hurts too much.

She shakes away the memories and tries to recall what happened more recently. It's hazy, jumbled, the past bleeding into the present. It's life preservers and ropes, cigarette smoke in salty air. Running from a man in a long black coat and dark glasses, but this time she's running _with_ him, and this time she doesn't end up on the floor with her arms pinned behind her back. This time she doesn't end up in an interrogation room with a bare, flickering bulb burning into her eyes, listening to the list of ways she's ruined her life.

This time, it might just be worse. The bulb is a fluorescent panel in a lab deep within the Institute, and it's a man in the chair, watching his memories be taken away, replaced with something... _better_. And it's her fault.

She thought she could handle it. She thought she had everything under control. Then she stepped into the Institute and everything fell to pieces.

_She's got a fan_.

"Are you alright?" asks Danse.

Her heart pounds, her head spins. All her thoughts come in the wrong order, like they're in the wrong language. A wave of nausea rises in her stomach, sudden and sickly. She closes her eyes against it.

"Yes," she says, trying to wrest back some control.

She'd wanted to let Gabriel go. But then she was running the alleyways she'd run so many times, and she knew where he'd go because there was only one route. She knew the exact spot in the wall where a brick had been chiseled out, just the right height to stick his toe in and launch himself over the wall and to freedom.

But he hadn't known about it. He'd stopped before even reaching the wall, and his shoulders had sagged. She'd spun him around and looked into his eyes, but they hadn't told her any truths, they hadn't told her anything. They were just a pair of eyes that held no answer to her questions. They just posed a new one.

_What now?_

She had no idea.

Then a shout, a burst of pain in her cheekbone, and the answering crunch of cartilage under her palm.

She shudders.

Danse has taken back his hand. Her face feels cold without his touch. "Who did this to you?"

"It doesn't matter," she says.

"It does," he says.

He turns his eyes on her and there's a moment of silence in which she wants to tell him everything. _Everything_. But she bites it back. He'll take it straight to Maxson, take _her_ straight to Maxson, and she doesn't want to face him. Not with this. Not yet. She needs time, to prepare herself, her story. Her plan.

But Danse isn't going to take silence for an answer. She knows that.

"There was an altercation," she says, trying to play it down. "Nothing serious."

"Nothing serious," he replies, with an incredulous shake of his head. "Grace, you're bruised as hell and covered in blood. It looks pretty serious from here."

She takes a deep breath, tries to collect herself. But all she does is open her senses to _him_. He smells of aftershave and stale cigarettes. Not his cigarettes, though, it's not that strong and he doesn't smoke anyway. Someone else’s. Well, lucky them. She doesn't even have the energy to feel jealous.

Then she realizes there's a familiar edge to it. A particular brand of cigarette, an underlying tang of house specialty liqueur, or air freshener, or cleaning product. _Something_. It's hard to tell over the metallic tang of her own blood but it seems to her that he smells like...

He smells like the Third Rail.

And now she knows she's going insane, because there's no way on earth he would ever go there of his own accord. She needs to get up, get out, get some air to clear her head. She pushes herself upright, swinging her feet to the floor, her head throbbing with the change of position. The room spins wildly; she closes her eyes against it but the sensation doesn't go away. She breathes through the confusion, running her hands over the surface of the couch, fabric smooth under her fingertips. She settles her feet on the floor, hard and warm under her bare feet. She's home, she tells herself. She's safe. For some definition of the word.

When she opens her eyes again, he’s still there, all suit and tie and perfectly coiffed hair. But he's crouched on the floor and he still smells of the Third Rail and it all seems _wrong_.

"I’m fine," she says, and the lie is so unconvincing she can't stop herself from laughing. It's a cold, dry laugh that turns into a cough, and if there were any doubt of the improbability of the statement, that would certainly put the lie to it.

"You’re not," he says. "You need a doctor."  
  
Her fists clench, fingernails digging into her palms. _I don't need a doctor. I don't need you. I don't need anyone._

"I don't," she says, and it must come out more viciously than she intends because his brows rise in surprise. She swallows, lowers her eyes to stare at her knees, and wills him to take the hint and leave her alone.

He doesn't.

"Alright," he says, and somehow his voice is still calm and soothing. "No doctor. But at least let me look at it, I have had some training in first aid. Not in here, though, the light's not good enough. The kitchen."

It had hurt. A lot. And she hadn't cleaned herself up after X6 had left, however long ago that had been. She'd just sat down on the couch, and waited.

For what, though. For him?

He rises to his feet and holds out his hand. She looks at it, stupidly, not immediately realizing it's to help her up. When she does, she feels the urge to slap the hand away, to rise gracefully and show him exactly how little she needs him. But she's tired. So tired. Tired of fighting, tired of acting, tired of being **Grace**. So she takes it, but even with its steadying influence she stumbles, her feet unsteady beneath her. Her vision fades, her shoulders sag, and she waits to hit the floor. But she doesn't. She's kept from it by a strong arm around her waist.

"I've got you," he says, and for a moment, that's all that matters.

  
In the kitchen, she sits on the edge of the table, where the lights are the brightest. As he washes his hands, she slides herself further back onto it, feeling another twinge of pain run through her wrist. She checks it; a purple mark is developing at the base of her palm, obscuring the dark veins that run down into her arm. It aches, but all her fingers are moving well. There doesn't seem to be any lasting damage. Still, she had been an idiot to hit Gabriel like that with no preparation.

She shouldn't have had to prepare. She should have tried to talk him down.

No. She should have fucking let him go.

From a cupboard Danse pulls out a first aid kit she doesn't remember ever seeing before. He comes to stand in front of her and begins to clean the side of her face. Every touch hurts, is accompanied by a succession of stings and sharp pangs, but he prefaces every single one with a warning. His voice rumbles on, not quite a cure for the pain, but a mild distraction from it.

She finds her eyes moving to watch his lips as he talks. They're pale and look dry, as though he's been chewing on them. The corners lift up with certain words and make her wonder if she's ever really seen him smile.

Her head must turn to follow her eyes because he stops and angles her face away with a single thumb against her jaw.

"Sorry," he says, as if he has anything to apologize for. "The light."

She swallows nervously, tries to ignore the wafts of aftershave, tries to ignore the warmth of his leg against hers as he continues his task.

"There," he says, after a little while. "All done. That should last for a while. I'll look at it again in the morning."

"Thank you," she says.

He steps back, just a single step. She can't read his expression. Once, twice, he takes in a slight breath, as though he's preparing to speak, but he doesn't. It only has the effect that she's staring at his lips again.

_Kiss it better?_

_Shut up, Grace._

She closes her eyes, shuts him out. She grips her fingers around the edge of the table and wills the intrusive thoughts away. A few moments later she hears footsteps, then splashing water. If he's at the basin, he's far enough away for her to risk opening her eyes again. His shoulders are rounded as he reaches under the faucet, the fabric of his jacket pulled tight over his shoulders, his head bowed down low.

"I'm sorry," he says, his back still turned toward her, his voice almost drowned out by the sound of rushing water.

She blinks, confused. "What for?"

"I should have been there," he says. "I shouldn't have left you alone."

"I wasn't alone," she says.

His head turns a little to the side, but he doesn't go so far as to turn completely around. He shakes the water from his hands, grabs the towel to dry them.

"I was with an Institute operative," she says. "He's assigned to me for my... protection. I guess."

"A fine job he did of that," says Danse, an unusual sourness to his voice.

"It wasn't his fault," says Grace, "it was mine. I was distracted."

_In more ways than you can know_ , she adds, silently.

"You shouldn't have been in that kind of situation to start with," he says. "He should be ashamed of himself for letting it get that far. And he didn't give you any medical assistance?"

A jolt of resentment rises in her chest. "I can look after myself," she says, perhaps a little too sharply. And it's another phrase that may once have been true, but right now seems like the most far-fetched of all the lies she's ever told.

He takes a deep breath. "I don't understand you."

_Join the club_ , she thinks. _Join the line._

Now he does turn to face her. "What are you trying to prove?" he asks, and his eyes are as stern as his tone.

"I don't know what you mean," she says.

_It's not about proving anything. It's about fixing it. I had my life in order and they took that from me. I fucking hate them for it. Is that such a surprise?_

Maybe she says it out loud. Maybe she doesn't. Either way, there's another silence as she curls her fingers around the edge of the table and tries to control her anger.

"I know what it's like," he says, eventually. "To lose someone."

He may be facing her, but he's not meeting her eyes. He's passing the towel from hand to hand, not drying them, just moving it and watching it.

"It changes you," he continues. "And not always for the better."

She can't argue with that. She knows what she looks like right now, how she _is_ right now. Bloodstained and exhausted, sitting on a kitchen table with no plan, no goal, no idea how to rescue the tattered remnants of her life. Exactly as she had been before Nate had come along. That's how it's changed her. She's gone right back to the start.

"Tell me about it," she says, bitterly.

He looks up at her with his soft brown eyes, surprised again by her vehemence.

She curses herself for it, tries to soften the words. "Really," she says. She gestures at herself. "You can see what's happened to me. Tell me about you."

It's not really the ideal situation to share life stories, _hey, you want to hear about the thing that fucked me up the worst?_ , one of you sat on a kitchen table with your feet dangling in the air like a kid in a high chair, the other leaning against the fridge, refusing to meet your eyes.

But he tries. "I'm not very good at these things," he says, and after a few false starts he begins to tell a story that sounds oddly familiar. Two boys, cast adrift in a city that didn't give two shits about them. Making a life for themselves. Finding a place together, in an organisation that seemed to hold the keys to a future they could share.

_Nate would have liked you_ , she thinks.

"Cutler was struggling," says Danse. "I saw it. But I couldn't do anything about it. Then one day... he just broke. We were in a difficult situation, a stand-off. He went crazy, shouting at everyone. Then he attacked me. I... I didn't have a choice."

Her blood runs cold.

It can't be.

"Cutler?" she asks. "Mark Cutler?"

"Yes," he replies, with a frown. "How do you... do you know about him?"

Nate had a picture of him in his wallet, right alongside hers. He'd never truly stopped grieving for him. You don't. Not a bond like that.

But it _can't_ be the same Cutler. Nate grew up in the Commonwealth, and Danse... well, he'd come from the Capital with the rest of the Brotherhood. Hadn't he?

He's looking at her, waiting for a reply.

"I read about it," she says, casting around for the words. "In the newspaper. I think."

It had been the thing, the one thing that Nate had kept from her until the absolute last moment. He'd saved it, sat on it, stewed over it for months. It had taken him so long to trust her enough to tell her and through the whole conversation he'd been utterly convinced that she'd walk away.

How _do_ you tell someone you're a killer?

_Yeah, Grace. How do you do that?_

She shakes her head. This doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense. Maybe it's a concussion. Maybe she's dreaming. Maybe it's a horrible coincidence.

Maybe the Institute got to him, too.

No. That's ridiculous.

"I didn't have a choice," says Danse. "Neither did you. I understand. Just... I want you to know you don't have to prove anything to me."

Once again they're stood a few feet apart, staring at each other. There's something not spoken, but she's too confused, too lost to work out what it is. This is the most he's spoken for months. The last was a night of too much drink in a vague attempt to get to know the man she'd been forced to invite into her home. She doesn't remember much of the conversation, just how flat her attempt at flirtation had fallen.

_"Would you hold me, if I needed it?"_

_"It would depend on the circumstances. I guess we'll have to see what happens when the time comes."_

She can't help but think that this is the time. He's helped her. He's opened up again, and as much as this is confusing as fuck he's standing right there, with a concerned look on his face. Maybe if she asked him, he might just come and hold her. She could rest her cheek on his chest, feel his arms around her back. Still, and warm, and safe.

_Shut up, Grace,_ says the voice inside her head. _You don't deserve that._

It's probably right.

"I need some sleep," she says, pushing herself off the table and onto her feet. Pain still reverberates through her skull but her legs feel steadier now, stronger. As she heads for the door, he says something, but her thoughts are too loud and rushing too quickly through her mind for her to listen.

She moves through the hallway, which is as painfully bright as the kitchen, and into the blissful darkness of her room. Closing the door, she leans back against it, eyes wide open. She can't give up, not now. She needs a plan.

She pulls off her clothes, dropping them on the floor as she heads toward the bed. She lies down on it, and starts to think.


	11. Chapter 11

After she leaves the kitchen, Danse stands there for a little while longer, leaning against the cabinets and staring at nothing. Then he folds the towel, and hangs it back over its hook. He carefully disposes of the used wipes, the backing from the bandage, and the empty tube of salve.

_What were you expecting?_

_I don't know. But not that._

He worries sometimes - often - that the memories are fading. They're certainly not as clear as they used to be, not that it's a part of his memory to which he enjoys returning. But now he's said the words out loud for what feels like the first time since it happened, they rush in as fresh as ever. He's right back there again. Poised behind a pillar, weapon drawn, in total control of the situation.

He issues the ultimatum.

_Give yourself up, and we'll make this easy on you._

The voice replies. Raised. Vicious. Unpredictable. Now, of course, he knows it's Cutler right away. But he hesitates nonetheless, to let memory-him go through the process, to let Cutler get to the point of his rambling, vituperative speech at which he spits out his hatred of everything for which he once stood. To confirm his total rejection of the Brotherhood. Of Danse.

He feels the panic rise again in the cold sweat on his brow and the churning of his stomach. He remembers the almost incomprehensible disbelief that nearly led him to walk out into the open, just to obtain visual confirmation.

Sometimes, he tries to make the Danse in his memories do it. Walk out there. He can't. All he can do is wait until the voice fades away, wait until the footsteps come up to and then past the pillar. He tries to talk him down all over again but it doesn't work. It never works. Even when he steps outside the script, Cutler always has the answers, or flat-out ignores his pleas. No matter what he does, he still ends up with his gun discharging into Cutler's chest. He knows it would be kinder, faster, to raise it to his forehead, but his hands always slow, or Cutler deflects the barrel, or _something_ intervenes to make it happen as it did on that terrible day.

You can't escape the past.

The wind howls through the air, kicking up dust that stings his eyes, eyes that are shockingly, painfully dry. He stares down, unblinking, at the bloodstained corpse of his former friend.

Something buzzes at the back of his thoughts.

_That's not right. That's not how it happened._

He shakes his head, tries to make the memories settle down. When he sees it again, he sees a cold, wet sheen on the ground and the body has a battered face, not a bullet wound in the chest. And it's not Cutler, either. It's her, it's Grace, but that's not right, she wasn't outside when he came back, she was on the couch. He closes his eyes against the vision. It's difficult enough to bear these re-livings of the past, without the present bleeding into them too.

He turns around, washes his hands again. The sound of running water soothes him, but only a little. She was fine. She _is_ fine. She's not just another limp body in his arms.

_Why did you tell her?_

Why indeed?

With another bruise blossoming on her face, with blood soaking into the neck of her shirt, why tell her then?

_Because she asked. She might even care. Is that so hard to believe?_

He shakes away that thought, too. He's not sure what he was expecting from her. Horror, maybe. Disappointment, probably. But recognition? No. She'd known Cutler's name, acted for a moment like she really knew, like she could have told the story herself but that's impossible. It was classified Brotherhood business. How could she _possibly_ know about it?

He sighs, deeply, and rubs his eyes. They ache, and feel like they're as full of dust as his head is of stupor. And the green numbers on the stove tell him it's late. Sleep. She said she needed sleep. He should try, too. He'll have a clearer view in the morning. Perhaps then he can get to the bottom of this.

  
In the room that's not his but feels more familiar and comfortable than it should do, he shrugs his way out of his jacket, hanging it on the back of the door. He can still smell the bar on it, transferred into the fabric from air thick with smoke and the scent of greasy food. There's an acerbic edge to it, too, from where he'd placed his elbow in a puddle of spilled liquor. Not the cleanest of venues.

He removes the rest of his clothes, folding them neatly on the side, and drops himself onto the bed. He turns out the light and lies back, pulling the sheet up over him. The room is stiflingly hot but it never feels right to just lie there without a cover.

He hears a faint noise.

It stops, so he ignores it and begins his usual routine, late as it is. Mentally tick off everything done during the day. Decide what to do tomorrow. It's the same plan every day. That is, until yesterday. Maybe that's where it went wrong. Perhaps he didn't plan well enough.

The sound increases in volume by degrees, gradually imposing on his senses until he can't ignore it any longer. It's like something crawling inside the walls, something with claws and pincers and fangs. An irrational burst of fear rises in his chest, proving once again how tired and on edge he is. There's no infestation of monstrous, overgrown insects plaguing the land. This is real life. He turns the light back on, and sits up to look around, trying to identify the source or cause of the sound.

As soon as the bedframe creaks, the noise stops.

He sits still. Nothing. But after a long minute has passed, it strikes up again. It seems to come from the very center of the room, right underneath him. He gets out of the bed, kneels down, and pulls up a corner of the sheet to look into the darkness there.

A pair of luminescent green circles shine out from the shadows.

"What are you doing under there?" he asks.

Dogmeat stares back unblinking, as though considering the question. After a few moments, the circles disappear and she darts past him, a streak of black brushing past his knee and squeezing through the barely-open door before he can even turn to watch her go.

His hand is resting on the carpet, scratchy and cheap under his fingertips. He's caught the cat testing her claws on it a number of times, as much to get attention as to actually fulfill some purpose, but this had made a different sound. There must be something under there, something to which the cat had been drawn. He leans down further and uses his phone to shed a little more light into the darkness. With difficulty, he can make something out, far underneath the bed. A slight impression of a raised area, perhaps the curled corner of a sheet of paper.

He flattens himself down low, dropping the phone and stretching his arm as far as he can. It's not until he's prone on the floor, fingers brushing over carpet that can't have seen a vacuum for months, that he really thinks about what he's doing. Retrieving items from underneath a relative stranger's bed, hell, even a close friend's bed is a risky decision. He's spent long enough in the Brotherhood to know that. But his fingers have already found the edge of a folder, just close enough for him to get a tentative grip and pull it out.

He draws himself to his feet, knees creaking with the effort. Too long standing outside the Third Rail, waiting for nothing to happen. Too long sitting in it, crunched into the corner of a darkened booth trying to avoid attention. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks at the folder. Perhaps once it had a color, but now it's faded by time or maybe just the dim light in the room. The cover is dented and scratched and slightly torn in places.

It doesn't belong to him. It's none of his business.

He opens it anyway.

It contains bank statements, bills, invoices. They're all made out to _Mr Nate Adams, Mr Nathaniel Adams, N.I. Adams Esq_. It's just simple paperwork, misplaced in a rarely-used room. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then in the middle, the papers fall apart to reveal a handwritten envelope and letter, addressed to a name he doesn't recognize. Nora. Nora Simpson.

He goes to fold it back up and replace it between the papers, but before he can his eye is drawn by a provocative sentence.

_... I didn't bring you up on my own to have you be this ungrateful ..._

It doesn't belong to him. It's none of his business.

He continues reading anyway.

The handwriting is messy and disjointed, to say nothing of the subject of the letter. Whoever this Nora was, she'd obviously cut all communication with a parent who wasn't best pleased. Just your average dysfunctional family, and Danse has come across enough of those in his time, not least his own. Then he sees another sentence.

_...your so-called husband stealing you from me. I suppose Nate put you up to this..._

Nate. It does belong to him.

"So who the hell is Nora?" says Danse.

He turns over the envelope, reads it over again. It's made out to the address of the house in which he's sitting. Sanctuary Hills, a development that couldn't be much older than the letter itself.

Is it Grace?

Even if it is, it's none of his business. He puts the letter away and slides the folder back under the bed. He brushes the dust from his hands, and wishes he could rid himself of the information as quickly. He should never have seen the file, and he should certainly not have looked inside it.

He'll have to tell her, though. He can't imagine it going well.

_I found this file, it had a letter in it. I read some of it, and I'm sorry._

_What were you doing under the bed? Looking for the boogieman or hoping to find a secret porn stash?_

He picks his phone from the floor and checks the time. 3:37. Definitely not a time to be making any confessions. He can do that in the morning. Either tell her what he's seen or... well. There is no other option.

  
As it turns out, he doesn't have the chance. By the time he wakes, she's already up and dressed, sitting at the kitchen table with the fingers of one hand tapping the rim of a glass of water, those of the other tapping her phone.

"Coffee?" he says, but she shakes her head.

He starts to make a pot anyway, in case she's just distracted and does want one. He lets water splash around the inside of the basin and tries not to think of the rivulets of diluted blood that he watched swirling around the porcelain the day before.

At one point, she looks up and smiles. The bruise is a dark shadow over her cheek, as dark as the circles under her eyes, and stark against the white bandage that covers the worst of the graze.

"It's fine," she says, as if reading his mind.

"I can look at it again," he says, but she just shakes her head. Again.

He returns to his task. Perhaps he should go to the Prydwen before he goes to Goodneighbor; the bar won't open until mid-morning and it seems a waste of time to sit here.

He's shaken from his thoughts by the sound of the doorbell.

"I'll get it," she says, rising fast, dropping her phone into her pocket.

Curious, he follows her into the hallway. She smooths down her skirt over her hips and takes a deep breath before opening the door, as though she's nervous of what's on the other side.

Danse feels his own nerves tighten at the sound.

The door swings open and standing in the doorway is what - who - he assumes to be the Institute operative she mentioned last night. The man's eyes are shielded by dark glasses, and his body by a long black coat, despite the warmth of the morning. His expression is unreadable, his mouth set in a hard line. If he sees the bruise on her face, he has absolutely no reaction to it.

He looks like he should be able to handle himself in a difficult situation. Which still begs the question of how he allowed it to get that far. But, Danse supposes, he does work for the Institute. Willingly. So he can hardly be that trustworthy.

Grace pulls her purse onto her shoulder, and gestures out toward the street. "Are we going or not?" she says.

He can't just let them go. He draws himself up to his full height. "Be careful," he says, addressing the statement directly at her new companion. He hopes the man sees his expression, and hopes he interprets it as he means it.

_You're responsible for her._

_You're responsible for that injury._

_So be careful, because if you let anything like this happen again, I'll kill you._

The operative turns away without a hint of recognition. A moment later, Grace is gone too and the door is slamming behind her. It's hard to control the feeling that he should not be letting her go.

Maxson's orders still ring clear. _Adams can look after herself._

But can she? In that kind of company?

_She's been getting away with too much. You need to keep a better eye on her._

The inconsistency, the uncertainty, so uncharacteristic of Maxson. Leave her. Watch her. Ignore her. Stay close.

Which is it?

Staring at the closed door, he makes his decision. He grabs wallet and keys and hurries out to the garage, sliding quickly into the driver's seat and turning on the engine. He reverses out of the drive and onto the street, where he pauses. He taps his fingers on the steering wheel before deciding the appropriate course of action.

It's not a chase. They're long gone. But he knows where they're likely to be headed. And if he's learned anything about Grace, it's that she never lets her driver go straight to a destination without stopping for something. Coffee, probably. Maybe that's why she didn't want his.

He wonders if she's buying pastries for the new operative, now.

He curses himself for the thought and sets off on a route with which he's not entirely familiar, but that ends up in a place just north of the river. The whole city knows of this one. CIT. The Institute, not that most people in the city are aware of that part of it. Yet.

He leaves the car some way distant and walks the rest of the way. He finds a decent spot at a bus stop, right by the building itself but shielded from their highly visible security cameras by an over-sized road-sign directing traffic toward the airport. He leans against the shelter and pulls out his phone, both checking and not checking the screen.

It takes a good few minutes for her to appear. She'd look like any businesswoman heading to her job, if it weren't for the bandage and the overbearing presence of the operative beside her.

From his position on the corner he has a good view of her unhurried approach. Forty yards from the building, the coffee's held carelessly in one hand, which is usual. But she's not talking, which is not. If it were him walking beside her, she'd be talking his ear off right now.

He doesn't like the sense of satisfaction that runs through him at that.

Twenty yards from the building she's stopped dead, holding the coffee away from herself, watching as the brown liquid spills onto the ground. A nondescript man in plain clothing and dark glasses has crashed into her. He was rushing down the street with his hands jammed into his pockets, and when he knocked into her he almost knocked her off her feet. He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture, and even from across the road, Danse could read the words on his lips.

_Sorry, man. My bad._

The... assailant, or oblivious tourist, or whatever he is, spins around and carries back on down the street at his breakneck pace.

The operative holds out a hand to steady her, and says something that is indistinguishable above the noise of the street. Grace slaps his hand away, and glares angrily after the man who bumped into her.

The operative's face is impassive as before.

She flicks the spilled coffee from her hand, and gestures for him to go ahead of her into the Institute.

Danse stands at the bus stop for a little while longer. He pulls out his phone, runs his thumb over the surface, but doesn't unlock it. He knows what he should do. He should call Arthur and tell him what he's seen, what the Institute operative hasn't seen.

The scrap of paper that passed between Grace and the man in glasses.

The man slowing to a saunter as soon as he was out of view of the building.

And the operative also won't have seen the pictures from Quinlan, showing a man of exactly that description, exchanging another papery note with a woman with dark, straight hair.

Grace.

Or is that _Nora_.


	12. Chapter 12

Grace chokes down her third coffee and smiles politely. Perhaps it's the lingering taste of blood in her mouth, or perhaps the Institute has been experimenting with coffee as well as chems and brains. Whatever it is, this liquid in her cup, dark and viscous and bitter... it's foul. But it does have a buzz to it, and something has to keep her awake through all the various inductions and meetings and awkward conversations. Something has to keep her alert and on her toes enough to ask the right questions at the right times.

Or just to shut the hell up and let people talk at her.

"You did an excellent job at Libertalia," the Director is saying. "I am so very sorry that you were injured. Had I known about this on your return last night, I would have insisted that you see one of our doctors."

_I would have told you to fuck off as well_ , she thinks. She nearly had anyway. When he'd seen her and noticed it for the first time, he'd reached out a hand toward her face as if to touch it. He'd caught himself, stopped the hand in mid-air, trying to cover up for the motion with an awkward tap on the pens in his top pocket.

"Perhaps you could see one now," he continues. "A doctor, I mean. That bandage seems somewhat... crudely applied."

"It's fine," she says, and the echoes of Danse's fingertips play over her skin once again. "It's just a scratch."

The Director's eyes are damp and bloodshot, and flicker between the bandage and her own eyes. It seems uncomfortably like he's looking over her shoulder, at someone or something approaching from behind on silent feet. Her skin crawls in response. She tries not to let it show by taking a sip of the coffee. It's cold now, too, as if it weren't vile enough already.

She places the cup on the desk but the feeling keeps returning. He can't keep his eyes still even as he talks of the next stage of their plans. Grace, bandage, terminal. Grace, bandage, terminal. It's enough to make her want to scream.

She bites it back and smiles politely.

Now the floor begins to shake, a light tremor that runs up through her feet, through her elbows that rest on the arms of her chair. It's not her imagination; the surface of her coffee ripples into a series of concentric circles. She can't stop herself, this time, and looks sharply over her shoulder. There's nothing there, not even X6, strangely absent. The door remains open and empty.

When she turns back around, the Director has a curious expression on his face. His hands lie flat on the desk as though he is also willing the building to still. But he's not concerned. He's uncomfortable, annoyed, but not concerned.

"What is that?" she asks, guessing that he knows.

"Server rooms," he says, clasping his hands in front of him. "With every new subject, we require more storage. We are rapidly running out of space. We could build up, and would prefer to, but the city authority is somewhat reluctant to grant us permission. For now, at any rate. And so we must head downwards. It is a little difficult considering the subway lines that run under the city, but we have our ways."

Subjects. Storage. That's all they are to him. And as if this building weren't enough of a blot on the skyline already, now they dig themselves even deeper into the foundations of the city.

_Beneath the Commonwealth lies a cancer_ , Arthur had said, in a missive she'd read even before she'd stepped in through the doors of the Prydwen.

Little did he know how true that was. Beneath. Above. Everywhere. An infestation.

"I have been assured that this... disruption will not last long," says the Director. "But I do apologize for any discomfort while it continues."

_How much space does a life take up, anyway?_

"We are becoming more efficient," he continues, "our collection and storage techniques become more sophisticated by the day. Although we have just suffered a slight setback."

"Oh?" she says, and she hopes she knows what that means.

"Yes," he says. "Li. Madison Li. Did you get a chance to meet her? My memory is hazy, I'm not sure how much your time here overlapped."

Li listened. She didn't just turn a blind eye. She let Grace walk away with the memory sticks that still burn a hole in her purse and in her pocket. She could have left it at that, continued with the research that seemed so fucking important to her, more important than the human lives it affected. But she actually left the Institute. Maybe she's even gone to the Brotherhood.

Maybe Arthur will get what he wants.

Grace holds in the sigh of relief and nods. "Yes, I did meet her, briefly. She seemed very... terse. Driven."

He nods, grim-faced. "Indeed. She was pivotal in our operations. It was difficult to persuade her to join us in the first place."

She can't push him too far. Think, Grace. What would a normal person ask?

"You have some concerns about her? What she might do?"

She curses herself for how clumsily the words come out.

He taps his fingers on the edge of his keyboard. After a moment he gives a little shake of his head and continues talking.

"It is more than likely that she took a copy of her research with her when she left. She successfully covered her tracks to prevent us discovering how, and how much. But the technology itself is safe, I'm confident of that. It's tamper-proof, you might say."

The Director smiles, satisfied. And she wants to ask how, she really wants to ask, but she just can't think how to phrase it in a way that doesn't incriminate her. While she hesitates, the building begins to tremble once more, and he utters a quiet complaint. It gives her a moment to catch herself before she goes too far.

There is a downside. No more Li means no more data. And if these servers really are tamper-proof she'll have to hope there's someone else who does know how to get into them.

If it comes to that.

"Do you keep everything?" she asks, echoing his casual terminology, hating herself for doing it. Everything? _Don't you mean everyone, Grace? Every single person these assholes have fucked with?_

He gives her a sharp look, and while she forces her face to remain still, a practiced move by now, she can't be sure the anger doesn't burn straight through her eyes. But his expression does soften. It softens too much, in fact, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he gives her a slow smile and speaks.

"Ah," he says. "You're wondering about your husband. If we still have... him."

She feels she should deny it, but it is true. It's not lying to say it. But she can't bring herself to utter the words, so she only nods.

"The short answer is yes."

"And the long answer?"

"The long answer is yes, but I'm afraid I can't let you see any of it. I'm sorry. In our experience, allowing those involved with the subjects to see themselves rarely results in a positive interaction."

_What the fuck have you been doing with it then?_

_What's_ your _definition of involved?_

She bites back the words before they even begin to form on her tongue, but perhaps that's worse, because he continues.

"It is not really him, you understand. It's his memories, his experiences, some of his thoughts even, though not all of them. To see yourself through the eyes of a subject who has met you is... uncomfortable. To say the least. People often present a face in public, even in private, that is very different to how they are inside."

Grace blinks, slowly.

"But don't worry. I know what you're thinking," he says. "You lost him, and I know how badly that must have hurt. You're wondering if we could remake him."

She feels her eyes open up wide in shock, and can't do a thing to stop them.

Remake him?

_Remake_ him?

Did I just slip into a sci-fi movie? What the fuck is this?

Are you completely insane?

But the worst thing, the thing that makes her sick, right to her stomach, is the breath of excitement that passes over her at the thought.

"That's not..." she says, struggling again to find the right words.

"It's only natural to wonder," he says. "It is... hard to lose someone. And much more so to let them go. That's part of the reason..."

He coughs, takes a sharp breath that seems to pain him. He looks up, and falls back into the pattern from before. Grace, bandage, terminal. Grace, bandage, terminal.

"It's technically possible," he says, finally fixing his view on his keyboard. "Obviously the body would be difficult to match, but obtaining something similar is trivial. He would not be the same person, obviously. But he would have the same memories. He would know you. He would love you just as much as your husband did. He would not remember... he would not remember the end. Our technology has moved on, we can excise unwanted memories..."

"What the _fuck_?!"

Grace finds herself on her feet, her chair drifting slowly away across the linoleum floor, coming to a rest against the cabinet stacked against the wall. She swallows down air, sucking it into her lungs but it's so dry, so processed, so _unreal_ it doesn't seem to provide her with any oxygen. She stares at her feet, feeling the tremors shake through the soles of her shoes, willing it to shake away the anger.

_You took him from me. You ruined everything. And now you offer to remake him?_

"I'm sorry," says the Director. "Perhaps I spoke too soon. I don't want you to push you too far, too quickly. I understand if you need some time to think about it. Let me call X6 back for you."

She shakes her head.

"It's for the best," he says. "He has been made available to you for your own protection."

"I don't need him," she says, through gritted teeth.

Is that a sigh she hears? A faint exhalation of breath, of irritation? She can't look up. The anger is too close to the surface, there's too much danger that it will burst out, uncontrollable.

"Very well," he says, eventually. "I won't insist. I can only make it my recommendation. My strongest recommendation."

"Noted," she says.

She leans down, picks up her purse that seems twice as heavy as it should be. She turns and heads for the elevator without a backward glance.

 

The artificially bright and perfectly-cooled interior of the Institute gives way to the harsh, hot glare of the afternoon sun. The air is hardly easier to breathe out here, the humidity and pollution seeming to clog her lungs with gasoline fumes and cigarette smoke and acrid chemicals drifting upriver from the chimneys of Greenetech.

She closes her eyes, lets the sun warm her skin, wills herself to calm down. She has a job to do. She needs to focus on that.

There's a loud hiss of brakes as a bus pulls up at the stop opposite. She has to get to the North End, as soon as she can. It's earlier than she thought, but perhaps the doctors will be ready for her now, if the note even reached them. It had been a risky manoeuvre for their agent to approach her right outside the CIT building, but that's what the scrawled instruction on her coffee cup had told her would happen.

The Railroad always know what they're doing. Don't they?

There's a break in the traffic, a red light at the crossroads; she could probably dart across the street right now and jump onto it. But she finds herself standing on the sidewalk until it pulls away. She's not claustrophobic, never has been, but the thought of being shut into a car or even a bus right now makes her shudder.

How does it feel to be stored on a server? Trapped in a body that isn't your own?

_There was another person in here with me. And I fuckin' hated him._

_How did he feel about you, Gabriel?_

She pulls off her jacket, hangs it over her arm, and starts to walk. The offer had been ridiculous, obviously. They couldn't possibly recreate Nate. Even if they could, the risks were incredibly high, no matter how proficient they'd become, or however they liked to put it. Ayo was the one that told her that. He had none of the sense of indulgence that the Director seemed to have toward her, fatherly or worse, and a far more realistic view of the Institute's capabilities. Or pessimistic. Even so, he hadn't liked being questioned. It was probably the closest she'd come to being thrown out of the Institute so far. He'd told her about how the experiments had begun. How badly they'd gone.

"We were less proficient at merging the memories," he'd said. "The brain is a complicated system, after all. Sometimes the brain rejected them. Sometimes it fought against them. Your objective at Libertalia, for example. Some suffered even worse. Several ran away, but we have retrieved most of the... fugitives."

_Objective_ , she'd thought. _How about Gabriel. Give the man his own fucking name._

She'd been too angry to moderate her tone. "Not all, then."

His eyes had flashed at her, sharp and piercing. "No," he said, shutting down his terminal with a decisive strike of the keyboard. "That's your job, now. Isn't it?"

She had wanted to ask more, to question him further, to find out if there was any way to explain Danse's knowledge of Cutler. If perhaps those memories had been given to Nate as a generic tale of militaristic mishap. But he'd turned his back on her and walked away.

And Nate had never agreed to that part of the test. That's why they sent Kellogg for him.

She curses. She has to get to Amari. Amari will understand. Amari will tell her what it all means.

Settled in at least that part of the plan, she starts across the river. Her mind begins to clear. Nate may still be in there, stored away in a server deep underground. If the chip was implanted before they met, their entire relationship is still in there. Nearly all of Grace, too. And she never agreed to be stored anywhere. For that reason, she has to stop them. She has to get rid of it. All of it.

But what if they _can_ wipe minds.

That would be one hell of new start.

She stops half-way across the bridge, resting her hands on the railings, looking out over the river. Birds take off and land on its sparkling surface, leaving trails of foam that fade quickly into the dark water. There had been a time, earlier in her life, when she'd stared into the depths of this river almost daily. Wishing she could be a bird, maybe. Something else, at any rate. Then she'd decided that just being some _one_ else would do.

That hadn't exactly worked out for her.

A pair of tourists pass behind her, giggling and pointing and taking pictures of themselves. A businessman in a black suit has stopped a hundred yards away, only just on the bridge, and is also looking down into the water. Behind him passes a couple with a dog, taking a walk on a nice summer's afternoon. The constant traffic zipping past on the metallic grating of the bridge isn't exactly soothing, nor is the stench of exhaust fumes that fills the air, but perhaps they have a more pleasant destination in mind.

She turns and continues along her path. Her feet begin to ache but she keeps going until she reaches the south side of the river, heading for the North End. She makes her way through streets that become narrower and narrower, up and past the graveyard on the hill, and then back down toward Carrington and Amari's clinic.

She's just remembering where the little door is hidden when a gust of wind blows her hair in her face. She turns away from the breeze and tries to stop the strands from attaching to the curling adhesive edge of the bandage. As she does she catches sight of something, a movement at the edge of her vision.

A businessman in a black suit. The one from the bridge.

Except... he's closer now, and it's clear that he's not a businessman. He's tall, bulky, imposing, trying to read an information sign as though he's a tourist. He's unmistakable, in fact.

Danse.

_What the fuck are you doing here?_

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Grace walks straight past the alley that leads to the faded red door of the clinic. She reaches into her purse and pulls out her phone. With the camera facing toward her, she can just about make him out. He's following. He's trying to do it subtly but he's not built for that, and he's obviously not used to shadowing someone.

She feels a rush of anger. It's tempting to turn around, look right at him. Maybe march right over him, spin him round by the arm even as he tries to pretend that he's not been discovered.

_How fucking dare you. Last night, barely more than twelve hours ago with the whole 'you can trust me, I believe in you' bullshit and here you are following me down the street in broad daylight?_

_What do you think you're going to see, anyway?_

No. No confrontation. Not here, it's too risky, this close to the Railroad. Grace takes a deep breath, sets her mouth in a firm line, and keeps walking.

He's put her at ease. He's let her go to the Institute. He must be following her to see what she does when he's not around, when she thinks he's not a threat.

Well. Maybe she should give him something to look at.

She switches apps and taps in a short message.

  _Hey John. Are you free? I'm in need of a little distraction._


	13. Chapter 13

Arthur's coffee is cold long before he finally manages to pick it up. Doctor Li has just left his office with an unnecessarily contemptuous glance back over her shoulder at him. Another woman who had arrived unannounced at the front desk of the Prydwen, demanding to see him. Another one who'd agreed to help, while giving every indication that it was the last thing she wanted to do.

He was determined to handle this one better, however. He asked her if she had any proof of her claims. If she'd brought any evidence of the Institute's underhanded operations.

"I'm a medical professional," she'd said. "not a thief. Besides. Your operative, or whatever the hell you call them here, she took plenty. Perhaps you should ask her."

Grace.

_Adams_ , damnit.

The anger had flashed back up, brighter than ever before, and if Li caught sight of his clenched fists before the elevator doors slid shut, he didn't particularly care.

Now he sits at his desk with Quinlan standing on the other side of it. The man looks nervous, and even more uncomfortable than usual. He looks away, adjusts his tie, then takes another step forward and slides a new file across the desk. It's slim, this one, so slim it could easily be completely empty.

"I would prefer to have verified the information more thoroughly," Quinlan is saying, apologizing before Arthur has even lifted the cover. "But I've been able to find almost nothing concrete. I thought it best to bring it to your attention now, however. There are certain... implications."

The folder contains two sheets of paper.

The first is a news clipping, an opinion piece. It refers to the death of a member of military personnel named Mark Cutler. A sudden change in behavior, turning aggressive and violent while on a routine operation; chem usage was suspected. Corporal Nathaniel Adams, his colleague, had been forced to subdue him. An investigation had cleared the latter of any wrongdoing, but the journalist suggests a cover-up is likely and trying to conceal a secret deal between the mysterious Institute and the military.

Journalistic paranoia, looking for the story that will make their career. Nothing they didn't already suspect and nothing to go on. They've already spent months in the Capital requisitioning military documents of this very period, finding nothing of any use.

Then Arthur's eyes are drawn back to the name. _Adams_.

He turns to the second document. A marriage certificate, dated almost exactly two years later. Nathaniel and, yes, Grace.

A sour feeling rises into his chest. He washes it down with a mouthful of ice-cold coffee.

"What's your point?" he asks. "We know that he was killed by the Institute. It's hardly a revelation to find him linked with them earlier."

Quinlan coughs, and taps his finger on Grace's name. "This woman does not exist."

The base of Arthur's cup scrapes on the table as his fingers tighten around the ceramic. "What?"

Quinlan takes back his hand. "There is no official record of her before this date. None at City Hall. None at her claimed school or college. Nowhere."

The room seems to fade away a little as Arthur stares at the letters of her name, at the glossy black print that just reflects the light, at the slightly dimpled surface of the paper on which it's printed.

Then the question bursts out of him, violently, but hardly more violently than he intends.

It shouldn't be a fucking surprise.

"How in the _hell_ did we not find this out sooner?"

"She provided just enough to... pass through our checks," says Quinlan. "Several levels of them. I believe now that most of the documents she provided were forgeries, albeit extremely good ones."

Arthur takes a deep breath. The Proctor is apologizing, still, so he holds up his hand to quiet him. "And this one?"

"It does appear to be legitimate."

He bites back the anger, tries not to lash out, but it seems to get more difficult by the day. It's not Quinlan's fault. She's responsible. She's the one who's lied, who's hidden her identity, from him, from everyone. Maybe even from her husband. Did _he_ even exist?

He has little hope of a positive reply, but he asks anyway. "Do you have any idea who she _is_?"

Quinlan shakes his head. "I'm afraid not," he says.

Another mystery. It might mean nothing. It might mean everything. There may be a reason she's hidden her past away so effectively.

Then a thought occurs to him. Arthur pulls out the old folder again, flipping through the sheets he's gone through so many times before, searching for more clues about this shady Railroad organization. He reaches the grainy photographs of the unknown pair of operatives in a dive bar in Goodneighbor.

He frowns as he focuses in close, his fingers trailing over the matte surface of the paper.

It's her. It seems so obvious now. The style of hair, the choice of clothes. And his stomach turns when he realizes that the clothes in question are the very ones she was wearing when she'd arrived at his apartment, wet with rain. The same damn day.

He pushes his cup aside before his shaking hands knock it over. She's laughing at them. At _him_. They've thrown Brotherhood resources at her, resources she's ground underfoot like so many spent cigarettes. Before now he could have thought that she was just a grieving widow, struggling to make sense of the loss. He had _sympathized_ with her for that. He knows what it's like to fight the grief every damn day.

How can he believe _any_ of it now?

He slams the file shut. "Who else knows about this?"

"None but myself," says Quinlan. "I undertook the investigation personally, due to its sensitive nature."

Arthur looks sharply up at him. If there's any hidden meaning under those words, _sensitive nature_ , it's not obvious in his face. No indication that he has any idea of what's happened between them, though he is evidently still discomfited.

"Should I raise the alarm?" asks Quinlan, after a moment. "We could prevent her entering the building again."

And it is tempting. It's even more tempting to let her in and then throw her out himself, dragging her down the stairs one by one, and depositing her in the street.

But she has given them Li, for whatever reason. And the doctor seemed quite convinced that Adams had obtained evidence direct from the Institute's servers. She may not have delivered it but if she doesn't get back in, then she certainly never will.

"No," he says.

"Very well," says Quinlan. "If I might be excused..."

"Go," he says.

His mind remains stubbornly blank for several minutes after the elevator doors slide shut. He stands, walks around the office, then stands in front of the windows, his eyes seeing nothing of the city beyond, only focusing on the faint trace of his own reflection.

What _is_ she doing?

He knows what she's done. She's done just enough to gain access to the Brotherhood, to him. She's done exactly the same with the Institute. If this Railroad are a third party, well. Perhaps he can use them to his advantage, if he can find them.

_If_ he can find them. And that small trace of doubt brings a fresh surge of annoyance. He's losing concentration, losing confidence. He should be able to say _find the Railroad_ and have his people jump to it. He should have folders piled high on his desk, he should be spending his nights reading new material, spoiled for choice, not picking over the exact same sentences in the exact same documents again and again and again.

It's not good enough. None of them are good enough. Even Danse is letting him down, every single day. He shared her home and who knows what else for weeks, and had no inclination that she wasn't who she said she was? How easy can it be to maintain a facade, a false identity, every hour of every day?

Arthur drums his fingers on the desk, and pulls out his phone. He could call the man, ask him where he is, ask him what the fuck he's been doing to let Adams get away with so much and find out so little but instead he pulls up the tracker. And that doesn't make him feel much better, because Danse appears to be in the middle of the city. The blinking dot on the map is north of the river.

He's supposed to be performing surveillance on the location in Goodneighbor.

He watches, hardly breathing, as the dot moves slowly south. It - Danse - goes over the river on one of the many bridges, through the North End, and then finally ends up in Goodneighbor, hovering over the Old State House. The Third Rail.

Exactly where he should have been all along.

"What the hell are you up to?" he asks, out loud. He rubs his hand over his mouth, irritated again by the scratch of coarse hair on his palm. He should have Danse brought in, but the map reveals no other Brotherhood agents in the area.

And can he trust any of them, anyway?

He makes his decision. He still knows his own mind, or he'd like to think so. He'll go himself.

  
The bar is dark and smoky, but there are enough green-shaded lamps and tacky neon lights around to make it possible to see. The bartender lifts his chin in a greeting.

"What can I get for ya," he says, his accent unusual even for the area. His appearance, too. He looks like a common thug, buttoned into a suit far too expensive for a place like this.

"A beer," replies Arthur.

"We got quite a lot of those," he replies. "Any one in particular?"

"You're the expert," he says. "What's your recommendation?"

The bartender stares at him for a moment, then reaches back into a glass-fronted refrigerator and pulls out a bottle. Without breaking eye contact, he cracks open the beer and places it on the bar, an unnecessarily careful gesture that somehow seems to be mocking him. Arthur picks it up and replaces it with a bill far larger than it needs to be, turning away and ignoring the change.

They can probably do with all the help they can get.

He regards the room, occupied by just a few disparate pairs and singles. Before his eyes cover even quarter of it, he sees a dark-haired woman sat in one of the shabby little booths with a man in a bright red military jacket.

_Fuck_.

His mind drifts back to that night, or rather early morning just a few days before, providing a late-night cab service to a pair of drunken idiots who had already caused him far more trouble than he needed. Little did he know then that it would only get worse.

The name escapes him, until he feels the memory of a touch on his elbow and her eyes, tired but bright, burning into his.

_We are springing Hancock too._

Hancock. John Hancock. The man had been drunk and distracted, and who knows what else might have been running through his veins, but he might still recognize him.

Arthur turns to face towards a television set playing some immensely tedious form of sport, and watches them out of the corner of his eye. It's dark enough at this particular corner of the bar that they're unlikely to notice him. They're busy, anyway, having some sort of discussion that might seem ill-tempered if it weren't for the smirks on both of their faces.

Hancock beats his hand on the table, and raises his voice just loud enough to cut through the soft background noise of the bar.

"C'mon," he says. "I dared ya, don't chicken out now."

In response, she tucks her hair behind her ear and knocks back a shot, then another right after.

More foolish drunkenness. Well, let her. Let her enjoy herself. He's not here for her. He's not ready for that confrontation, not yet. He needs to gather the evidence, build his case. This is the truth. You cannot possibly deny it. You cannot argue your way out of it. What do you have to say for yourself?

And for that, he needs to talk to Danse.

He turns back around to the bar, stares at his beer. He's here somewhere. He needs to find him but now he has to do it while avoiding her attention. He can't take in much at once, only daring to take quick glances over his shoulders. There are shapes huddled in every corner, but he can't identify a single one of them.

The bartender moves around behind the bar, tidying nothing, moving bottles by a fraction of an inch, wiping up stains that may well be imaginary. His eyes flick back to Arthur every few moments, as though watching him as much as he's trying to watch the room. Then, as he's polishing an already-clean patch of varnished wood just next to Arthur's elbow, he stops mid-action, leans heavily on the surface and stares out into the room.

"Oh for fuck's sake," he says.

Arthur turns, unable to stop himself. Hancock is leaning back in the booth, laughing like a drain. Grace herself is climbing up onto the table, looking down at him and grinning. She bends down to plant her hands on the surface of it, rolling her shoulders and steadying herself, then kicks up and swings her body into a handstand, the table wobbling dangerously under her.

Hancock laughs harder and holds out his hand in front of her face, curled into a fist, then begins to straighten his fingers one by one. A countdown. A challenge, then. A bet.

For the first two counts, she's stable. By the third, her legs are swaying to keep her balance. By the fourth, her arms seem to be shaking and her shirt slides down, or up, rather, revealing her bare back and the straps of a bright red bra he shouldn't recognize but is almost certain he does.

It takes Hancock a much longer count to finally unfold his thumb and signal for her to get down. The table almost tips over when she does, but she lands surprisingly gracefully on the seat, almost cat-like, then steps back down to the floor. She straightens up, smooths down her shirt and shakes back her hair. Facing Hancock, she raises her chin and even across the bar he can hear her words.

"Pay up," she says.

And then she turns, lifts her hand to her lips and blows a kiss at a figure standing at the other end of the bar.

A tall, well-built figure in a dark suit.

A figure with a shock of dark hair and an expression of shock on his face.

Danse.

Arthur can't believe he didn't see him before now. He can't have been hidden from view; there's nothing to hide behind. He must have been trying to conceal himself.

But from whom?

Regardless, his expression now is one of shock and surprise and what looks like guilt. And it doesn't get any better when Grace calls across the room to him, a room in which almost all eyes are already on her.

"Enjoy the show?"

Danse stands motionless for a long moment, then his face seems to set firm, as though he's made a decision. He starts to move toward her but even before he reaches her she's started to talk again.

"You've been following me," she says.

He only replies with her name, _not_ her name. "Grace," he says,

"What were you hoping to see, Danse?"

He doesn't reply. He doesn't try to deny it but she acts like he does, her hand flying up in an uncustomarily demonstrative gesture. The alcohol, or perhaps she really is as angry as she seems, with bright spots of red on her cheeks and flashing, dangerous eyes.

"You followed me right through the fucking city," she says. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you think I'm blind?"

He stands calm in the face of her fury, but his stolidity only seems to make her more angry.

"What were you hoping to see?" she repeats.

"You," he says.

That's it, one word. But it says a thousand of them, and it's finally too much for Arthur to bear. He steps forward, and he has to get within scant feet of them before they break eye contact, and it's not just due to the darkness of the bar or the carpeted floor silencing his approach.

She darts a glance at him, but recognition waits until she's turned back to Danse. Then her head whips back around and her eyes open even wider.

"You as well?" she says, and her tone is incredulous, biting.

"What do you think you're doing?" he says, directing the question at her though it clearly applies to the both of them. He's unable to unclench his jaw before he speaks and comes out as more of a hiss than a measured query.

"I'm in a bar with my friend," she says. "Having fun. Do I need to explain that concept? I know it's kind of old-fashioned."

And there it is again. She just can't resist the cheap jab.

"Arthur," says Danse, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"I was under the impression," says Arthur, ignoring him, "that you had a job to do."

"Maybe I did it already," she says.

"Maybe you did," he says. "But without delivery, it's worthless."

Hancock, momentarily, _blissfully_ forgotten, comes to stand opposite him and between them.

"C'mon, guys," he says. "Lighten up."

"Stay out of this," says Arthur.

Hancock raises his hands, in a gesture that initially appears conciliatory but is proven otherwise by his words. "You don't get to tell me what to do," he says, "not here. You're here because I, and by extension, my employee Charlie over there - big guy, behind the bar, packs a mean punch - ain't thrown you out yet. So cool it, kid, and let's keep talkin' about whatever this is like adults."


	14. Chapter 14

_You_.

Grace closes her eyes, screws them up tight and tries to calm down. Her stomach churns, and her mouth alternately dries out and fills with saliva that's tainted by the aftertaste of the shots John had hardly needed to persuade her to down. Around that, through that, in the burning pain that swallows her heart the anger swells and rises and threatens to take her over.

"Without delivery, it's worthless," says Arthur, and he spits that last word at her like a snake spits venom, hoping to blind or stun. And perhaps it works, because all she can think of is that word, worthless, worthless, _worthless_.

_I know I am._

_I always have been._

John tries to help but all he does is introduce the prospect of violence. She opens her eyes, tries to catch his, _come on, John, mention the big guy behind the bar, fine, but don't mention his fists unless you want things to get ugly, you know as well as I do how this shit works_. But maybe he does know what he's doing. These two would never cause that kind of scene in public, not here in this place that's so far beneath them. They remain absolutely motionless, and Charlie gets to remain behind the bar, poised, ready, those fists already back polishing glasses that were probably perfectly clean before he picked them up.

The moment extends into minutes, the silence oppressively heavy between them. It's quiet enough to hear the humming of the Third Rail's ancient air-conditioning, and for words to begin to filter through as the other occupants of the bar lose interest in the lack of fighting and go back to their drinks.

Arthur's face is dark with anger, his brow drawn in tight and low over his eyes. One side of his upper lip is lifted in an expression of disgust or revulsion and it's so fierce, so full of hatred that for the first time in years she actually feels it. Fear. She didn't think she was capable of it any more.

_No._

_You can't make me feel like that. Not you, with your suits and your money and your people to do your dirty work for you. How_ dare _you. You haven't been on the ground, so low you don't know if you'll make it through the next night. You haven't hauled yourself back up by bloodied fingernails, despite everyone trying to drag or stomp you back down._

_You've had it fucking_ easy _._

"Where's the data?" he says, his teeth clenched so tight she can barely understand him.

She knows it would be easier to just hand it over but her own anger is too fierce to let her. Fear is nothing, it tells her. Fear is weakness. She's put herself between the lion's jaws enough times to know that she'll come out alive.

"Grace," says Danse. "If you have it, you should give it to us."

_You_.

She doesn't move, not to look at him, not to fetch the data. Nothing.

"For fuck's sake," says Arthur. His eyes break away for the first time, sweeping around the table, searching. Then he bends down and grabs her purse, pulling it open and beginning to search through the contents.

"Woah," says Hancock, starting to reach out to stop him. "That's not cool, come on."

She holds up her hand and meets his eyes. "Let him," she says.

Arthur dumps her possessions out on the table, the lipsticks, the eyeliner, the compact mirror with the crack in the corner that she can't bear to get rid of. He looks briefly at the blank notepad with its corners grey and folded after weeks in the bag, at the pen with the too-watery ink that seems to start fading as soon as it touches the paper.

Grace waits to see if he finds the thumbstick that's still hidden in the lining of the bag. She'd planned it as a dramatic gesture, _I wasn't sure I'd be able to get this out of the building openly_ , tear open the fabric with a flourish. Give data, receive thanks. Of whatever kind. But she hadn't wanted to hand it over until the Railroad had seen what was on it, made sure that what was on it was useful. Make sure that what was on it wasn't _her_. But it's too late to worry about that now. Danse has made sure of that.

When the bag is empty, Arthur drops it on the table with an angry sigh. He rests his fists on the surface of it, bows his head, and repeats himself slowly, a little more clearly this time.

"Where's the data?"

She waits until he looks up, his face oddly calm, his eyes absolutely cold. She gestures to Hancock, to pass her the jacket slung over the back of her seat. He passes it with a soft crinkle of his forehead, _are you sure_?

She knows he'd keep hold of it if she gave him the sign, the old sign, the sign to break and run. But she nods, and he lets go with only the barest sideways glance at the back of Arthur's head.

Hanging the jacket and from the fingers of one hand, she slides the other one into the pocket. She pulls out the second thumbstick, the one that so nearly reached the Railroad, the one she'd been warming in her hand just an hour before. She holds it out toward Arthur between two fingers, just as she would a cigarette or an inhaler.

He takes it, unexpectedly delicately, his fingers just brushing against hers as he does. But there's no exchanged glance, no subtle meaning in that touch. His eyes are entirely fixed on the disc. He's got what he wants. He doesn't need her any more. He closes his fist around it, clenching the fingers tight in something that looks almost like a celebration, then pulls open his jacket to slide it into an inner pocket. He pauses, there, his hand still absently resting on his collar, fist over his heart, his eyes looking at a patch of floor behind Grace's knees. Just like the picture in the lobby of the Prydwen. The symbol of the Brotherhood made flesh.

_Ad Victoriam._

She wonders if he's preparing a parting shot. It would be the perfect time for a condescending _there, that wasn't so difficult, was it? Now if you'd just co-operated in the first place, we could have gotten this over with a lot sooner._

But that's what she would have done. His mind seems to be somewhere else entirely as he turns away toward the stairs and the outside world without another word.

"Arthur," says Danse. "Do you need me..."

"No," says Arthur, not letting him finish. He looks back, and the glance that passes between the two of them is sharper than before, his lip turning up into that dismissive snarl again. "You stay here. Do whatever it is you came here to do."

She tries not to look as he departs but his shoes sound loudly on the stairs, leather soles of his glossy black shoes tapping against the metal of the steps, and it's hard not to be drawn by that sound. She watches him until he disappears, bit by bit, first the close-shaven back of his head, then his back, his legs, and finally those tapping feet.

A waft of smoke and pollution breezes down the stairs and tells her he's gone. Striding through Goodneighbor, looking around with disgust at everyone and everything in it, retreating to the safety of his climate-controlled car and driving back to the safety of the Prydwen.

"You okay?" asks Hancock, bringing her back down to earth.

She doesn't turn because then he'll see the word that's emblazoned in her mind, like he always does. What she hides from everyone else is plain as day to him.

_No._

_I'm not. I never have been, and I never will be._

"Grace," says Danse.

Danse.

_You._

Now she does turn, to look at the man who's tracked her through the city like a... hardly like a shadow, too bulky and blundering for that. His collar seems too tight, his suit too snug for the oppressive heat of the day. His brow is furrowed too, but by no means as viciously as Arthur's. And that expression might have started as anger, but now it's tempered by surprise, by concern, by _guilt_.

What the hell was that supposed to mean, anyway. _You_. If he were looking for her, he'd found her even before she'd crossed the river. She'd stopped, even, more than once, before she'd even realised he was following. That should have given him the perfect opportunity to catch up to her if he'd really wanted to. But he hadn't.

He was hiding something. He still is.

"What," she says, sharply.

"We need to talk," he says. "In private."

"Whatever you want to say to me," she says, "you can say it to me here."

He rubs the back of his hand over his forehead and takes a few steady breaths before looking back at her, his expression confused, half-pleading.

_Don't make me do this._

She waits, not moving, determined not to move. Perhaps it's the alcohol, it's stopped her thinking, _really_ thinking about why he might be tracking her through the city, why he might be afraid to confront her. What he could have learned that might make him so afraid to speak.

Then she draws in a sharp breath, because she realizes. Too late.

"I know," he says. "I know who you are."

And before she has a chance to stop him he says it.

Nora.

_Nora._

It rings out like a thousand bells, his voice so deep and resonant that everyone in the bar must have heard it, everyone in the district, even Arthur in his car with the windows shut tight against the world. Her head snaps around to see who's close, to see if anyone reacts, if anyone's thinking _oh, Nora, that explains a lot._

"Woah now," says John, wide-eyed. "Time out. Not here."

"Not anywhere," she hisses.

"We need to talk about this," repeats Danse.

"I don't want to talk," she says, the words spilling out fast, high pitched, childlike. "Not about this, not about anything. Not with _you_."

"Gracie," says John. "It's cool. You don't have to talk if you don't want to."

It's too late, though. She hadn't spoken or thought of it for weeks, months. That was the deal, that was the promise she'd made herself. And it's odd, she thinks, as her fingers tingle and her hearing buzzes, that a single word can feel like the world ending.

_Nora._

It feels like all the oxygen has been sucked from the room or she's forgotten how to breathe. Like her lungs are filling with smoke and her head with stupor. She drags in air to the very bottom of her lungs to get enough strength to even draw in the next one.

_You._

With sweat cold on her face, fire burning under her skin, she breaks away and heads for the back exit, next to the stairs that lead up to the little apartment that nobody uses any more. The door's locked. She slams her fists against it, but that doesn't do anything to shift it so she spins around and slams her back against it instead, sliding down it to the floor. As she hits the ground she sees a shadow appear in front of her, but she presses her hands over her face so she doesn't have to see what's casting it.

Maybe it won't see her.

"Grace," says Danse, with a softness in his voice she hasn't heard before, but she closes her eyes tighter in the hopes that it'll close her ears too.

"Leave her be," says John, in his scratchy drawl. "I know you want answers but you ain't gonna get 'em like this."

Then there's another voice. Deep, and gruff, and unamused.

"You," says Charlie. "Out. Now."

Whatever Danse's protestations or arguments might be, they're distorted by the echoes of the stairs, and become more muffled as the voices move further away.

She's left in silence, except for her own labored breaths and the hammering of her heart in her ears. Cold seeps into her from the concrete, through bones that are too close to the skin again, but the cold cools the panic, and the anger that still simmers beneath it.

Her heart lurches faster at the sound of soft feet and a quiet cough. She half wishes it was Danse. That he'd maybe argued, maybe fought for her. But of course it isn't. Why would it be? What reason had she ever given him for that?

"John?"

"Yeah," he replies, matter-of-fact as always.

She swallows down the bile that's rising into her throat, keeps her eyes closed shut against the tears that want to escape. Grace doesn't cry. That was Nora. Nora cried, she cried all the goddamned time and it never did her any good.

There's a shuffle of shoes on concrete, a light waft of air, a breath maybe. He's close, but not too close. He knows.

"You want me to stay, or leave you to it?"

She holds out her hand.

The hand that takes it is hot and dry, the skin rough and papery. It squeezes hers, then laces their fingers together as he comes to sit beside her, his hip and shoulder pressed close against hers. He rests his arm behind her neck, pushing her head away from the door.

She finally looks at him, and sees his watery black eyes right next to hers. He shakes his fingers free from her hand, and tucks her hair behind her ear, careful not to pull it too hard off the bandage, corners of it curling away from her face with sweat and the humidity of the day.

She's trying to think of what to ask him, whether to ask him.

_I've got nothing left. Nothing. What the fuck do I do now?_

He's not going to know the answers either. But he does see her hesitation, senses a question on her lips.

"I know what you want," he says. "And no. You ditched that shit. We both did."

She laughs, or sobs, or both, because he's not quite right but more right than she'd realized. "You're quoting me," she says, as his arm tightens around her shoulders and his hand finds hers again.

"Yeah, well," he says. "I never was that original."

She kicks off her shoes and shuffles down to rest her head on his shoulder. The concrete's hard under her ass and the arm that's stuck between the two of them is already prickling with trapped nerves. It's not the first time they've ended up like this, alone at the foot of a set of dark and dismal stairs, some kind of confrontation echoing in both of their minds. At least they both have homes to go back to these days.

"Was he alright?" she asks. "Danse, I mean."

"Looked like a kicked puppy," he says. "But yeah."

He's the one who followed her, who came to confront her. How did he find out? _What_ did he find out? Where did he see the name, what records does he have? What records does Arthur have?

The room starts spinning, so she closes her eyes to stop at least one thing from spiralling out of control. But she still can't stop herself from thinking. Charlie might have led him to the door by his elbow, or at least at a polite yet imposingly close distance behind him, but then what? He'd go straight to Arthur, of course. What else, unless Arthur's waiting outside, leaning against his car, twisting the thumbstick in his hands.

_It's true_ , Danse'll say. _It's perfectly obvious. We can't trust her._

_Alright_ , Arthur will say. _We got what we wanted. Cut her off._

_Finish her_ , even.

"He's got it bad, you know," says John, pulling her back, again.

She frowns. "What?"

There's another quick squeeze of her fingers before he speaks again. "These eyes are bad and my nose is fucked but that don't mean I'm completely insensate, ya know. You tryin' to tell me you are?"

_You._

There's a shift in her stomach, a feeling that she barely even recognizes any more. One she fights back down as hard as she can. She sits and breathes and concentrates on John's fingers pressing softly on her skin, hand and arm both. "He's just doing his job," she says.

"So he's multi-taskin'," comes the reply. "We've all done it."

"If he does, why would he do this?" she asks. "Why would he just... throw it in my face like that?"

"You told him to."

_Whatever you want to say to me, you can say it to me here._

She closes her eyes and curses herself.

"I ain't never seen him before," he continues, "but I can tell you rightaway he'll do anything you tell him. Click your fingers, he'll come." He laughs. "Runnin', I mean, nothin' sordid. Well. Not unless you..."

"Shut up," she says.

"Okay," he says. "Just tryin' to lighten the mood. But if you like him..."

"I don't," she says.

"Okay," he says, clearly unconvinced.

It doesn't matter if he's convinced. It's too late for that. Even if she'd known before Arthur, it's too late for _her_. She made the mistake once. She's not going to let it happen again.

She's not going to let _any_ of it happen again.

And with that, a wave of calm washes over her, at last. She takes back her hand and picks herself up, brushing the dust from her skirt. She slips her shoes back on, ignoring the grit stuck to the soles of her feet. The sudden change of position sends blood rushing from her head, darkening her vision and dampening her hearing. But that's good. The less she sees, the less she feels, the better. The less she has to lose.

She pulls back her shoulders and heads back into the bar. 


	15. Chapter 15

X6 taps his fingers on the steering wheel, his elbow resting on the open window. The sun is low in the sky, and glaringly bright even through his sunglasses. He hears a slam and a faint metallic rattle and looks across the empty passenger seat toward the house. Grace is locking her front door behind her, dropping her keys into her bag and turning toward the road.

She had returned to the Institute two weeks before. He had not been as pleased as the Director had to see her. He was still uncomfortable at how quickly she had been accepted into the fold, without even the precaution of a chip to monitor her activities. And he is, in truth, concerned that her true purpose might still be obscured from them. But he dismisses that thought, quickly. The memory of multiple debriefing sessions is enough to convince him of that necessity.

_Why do you doubt her?_  
_Do you doubt the Director?_  
_Do you doubt his decisions?_  
_So why would you doubt her?_

He answers truthfully, then and now, I do not doubt her, I merely consider every possible eventuality. I have to assess the risks, that is what I am engaged to do. But he knows that deep in the bowels of the server rooms, rooms that expand every day and shake the whole city as they grow, there is a file with his name on it. And in that file now is a black mark. Perhaps more than one of them.

And every Institute operative knows what happens when they receive too many of those.

Grace puts on a pair of sunglasses of her own and walks down the drive toward him.

On the first day after her return, he had arrived at the same time as today, 8:35 exactly. He had waited, but she did not exit the house. So he had approached, knocked on the door, and been invited inside.

On the one hand, he was pleased to note that the Brotherhood operative who had been there before was absent. Not just temporarily, either, there was no sign of his presence at all, no coats on the rack, no shoes by the door. X6 judged that absence to be a good sign. It indicated a rift between Grace and the Brotherhood, and X6 was sure the Director would be pleased to hear about that.

Inside, she pointed him into the kitchen, told him to sit down. He did not. He would not be waiting long, after all. He stood in the hallway and folded his arms.

Soon, a small multi-colored cat appeared, first one eye peering around the doorframe of a darkened room, then both. Then it padded across the floor and began winding itself around his feet, making small attention-seeking noises, and leaving orange and golden hairs behind it.

He had tried to shoo it away, pointing with his hands, gently nudging it with his boot, eventually hissing at it. That made it run, and X6 thought he had succeeded, but it only returned a moment later with a small stuffed mouse in a bright shade of yellow. The cat dropped it at his feet and looked at him, expectantly. He kicked the toy away but the cat ran after it, returning it to him, mewing and circling, waiting for him to kick it again.

He thought that perhaps ignoring it would be a better solution. So he did enter the kitchen, sat at the table and began to read a discarded newspaper that appeared to be at least a week old.

The cat, of course, jumped up onto the table, walking in front of the paper and flicking its tail in his face while continuing to cry for his attention.

He dropped the newspaper and pushed the cat, harder this time, its claws scratching on the surface of the table. "Get away from me," he said.

A movement at the door caught his eye; Grace, obviously. She just stood there, looking from the cat and back to him, an unreadable expression on her face. Then she turned and headed for the front door.

Since then, she hadn't invited him in again. Not that he would accept if she did.

  
Grace settles in the passenger seat with a quick nod of greeting.

He has noticed a slight difference in her since her most recent return. She seems calmer, perhaps, less emotional and unpredictable, and X6 is glad for that. Her smile is as brittle and polite as on the first day, and her lips painted in the same shade of blood-red. But she does not try to engage him in conversation, at least, allowing them to concentrate on the matter in hand.

That matter today is reconnaissance, of a sort. Information has come to light about a group of Institute employees meeting in secret. Internal Institute communications are of course subject to constant surveillance; the location and certain combinations of words used in a particular set of messages having triggered internal audits and investigations. The suspicion: Railroad activity.

He pulls away and sets off toward Bunker Hill, the route already carefully planned and timed. The meeting is taking place in a public building, a museum of sorts, containing remnants of the history of the locale. Holding onto the past in such a manner seemed to be of little value to X6. Far better to invest in the future. Mitigate future mistakes instead of wallowing in past ones.

The houses around the square sport shutters painted in various garish shades; yellow, blue, pink, green, just a few refreshingly plain and white. It is an antique style that some might find quaint, but X6 finds distasteful. Shutters themselves are another relic of the past, inefficient and outdated. Better to tear the place down and build something fit for purpose.

The museum itself is one of those houses, or perhaps two knocked together, with a large sign above the door replacing any of those shutters. In the entrance hall, tables are laid out heavy with tatty souvenirs, cheap plastic figures purporting to refer to historical persons, replicas of the monument rendered in dusty silicone or painted plaster, pierced by rings for keys or mounted on wooden bases for display.

Inside, Grace removes her sunglasses and replaces them with a set of thick-framed glasses with clear lenses. This surprises X6, as he was not aware she had any defects in her vision. He does not have time to ask, not that he would, before they are approached by a young man wearing a green scarf around his neck and an old-style military hat, pinned up on one side as though he'd just stepped out of one of the paintings arrayed on the walls.

"Tickets for the monument?" he asks. "Right at the desk over there. Two hundred ninety-four steps to the top, I've got to warn you, but you look like you can handle it. If you have any questions, my colleague here... oh."

He's turned to the desk, which is currently unstaffed.

"Is there a coffee shop in here?" asks Grace.

"Yeah, downstairs," he says. "If any of my employees are still here to man it. Ha!"

  
The room is small but bright, though not lit by any natural light. A few tables are scattered through it, all surrounded by foldout chairs. A counter on the left holds a small coffee machine and several stacks of paper cups. A glass cabinet on the right contains a display of what appears to be troop movements or battle lines. Next to that, at the very back of the room, three people are sitting around a table. He recognizes one of the group as a medical assistant from the Institute, one he has often seen present at re-integration procedures. That one, in fact, looks up and is visibly and audibly shocked to see their approach.

"Fuck," she says.

The second - an older man that X6 does not recognize - looks up slowly and doesn't react in any significant manner, other than looking to the medical assistant, perhaps for guidance. She may well be the ringleader. And the third, a woman with short blonde hair, only looks between Grace and himself once with a weary expression, before returning her attention to her drink.

Grace steps forward, pausing a few feet away from the table. The medical assistant still seems the most agitated, so X6 keeps a careful eye on her. He watches her feet; if they settle on the ground she may be about to attempt to escape. If her hand moves too quickly, she may be reaching for a weapon. Depending on what exactly they are guilty of, anything could be possible.

"I think you know why we're here," says Grace, her voice unusually dry and hoarse.

"This is bullshit," snaps the medical assistant. "This whole thing is bullshit. Why are they sending operatives after three people having a fucking coffee at a museum? This is ridiculous. We're not doing anything."

"Give it up, Marie," says the second woman, "it's pointless. This was a stupid idea all along. Christ, why did I listen to you anyway. You should know better than to think this could work, you've done enough of this shit for them."

"It's not like I had a fucking choice," replies the medical assistant, through gritted teeth.

"Whatever," says the blonde, scraping patterns into the rim of her cup with her nails.

"What's this idea?" asks Grace, still calm, still collected, though her eyebrows have risen somewhat, perhaps at the pace of the conversation.

"Getting out, getting away," she says.

Marie practically hisses at her. "Helen!"

"Ah shut up," she replies, cutting her off. She points right at X6. "If he's here, we're fucked anyway. He gets back, they take his nicely recorded memories, and we're all dragged in for a wipe. If we're lucky."

"Marie," says Grace, apparently identifying her as ringleader too. "Just tell me what's going on here."

The woman taps her fingers on the table, but barely for a moment before she sighs irritably and speaks. "I'm a medical assistant, alright? I hold the kidney bowl with the chip in it before it gets put in. I clean up the blood, I hold their hands when they're screaming. I've had enough, alright. I want out. That's all."

Grace nods, slowly, and turns to Helen. "You?"

She doesn't reply, just rolls the cup in her hands.

Grace turns to X6 for clarification, but before he can say anything Helen laughs, a mirthless laugh.

"He won't know either," she says. "They don't let operatives in the habitation section."

"Habitation section?" says Grace.

"Yeah," says Helen, shooting a harsh glance at Grace. "Where the scientists live. Sleep. Conduct their family lives."

For the first time in a little while, Grace seems at something of a loss. "I'm sorry?"

Helen raises her chin, "You're Adams, right? You mean they didn't offer you a replacement?"

Grace remains perfectly, unnaturally motionless.

"Don't do it," she laughs. "He'll be a disappointment, just like me. Though maybe you'll be smart enough to ask for the docile version."

X6 feels an unusual sensation in his stomach, something approaching nausea. He was not aware that anything of this nature was taking place in the Institute. Such a thing seems tawdry, superficial; as superficial as the cheap tourist goods up in the hallway of the museum.

"Helen," says the medical assistant. "Just stop."

"Why? There's no point holding back now," she says. "We're going back. That's it. Game over. If we don't go now he's just going to use his chip to radio out for help or whatever."

"It does not work like that," he says.

She glares at him and continues, her voice rising, vicious in tone. "Besides, wouldn't you rather they know? That we're here? That we know what they're doing, no matter how many times they wipe us? They don't know how many of us we are. _We_ don't know how many of us we are. One day, the whole place is going to crumble around them and I hope to God I'm in the middle of it when it does."

"God fucking damnit," says the medical assistant, burying her head in her hands.

"I just sweep," says the male employee.

"I know," says Grace, softly.

His expression is bewildered as he looks around the table. "I thought this was... I thought we were coming to see the monument. I've never been. Lived here all my life and I've never been. I was sick on the day my school came. Never had a chance, after, I was always working."

Grace takes a slow, deep breath, then faces X6.

"Do we have all we need?" she asks.

He nods his head. "The usual procedures apply, effective immediately. Your names will be added to the list, and you will each be assigned an operative. If you do not return to the Institute in good time, the operative is permitted to use any means necessary to bring you back."

_Then you will be re-integrated_ , he adds, silently. He ignores the nagging sense of discomfort that thought brings.

Grace turns back to the group. She removes the glasses, and he is surprised once again by the dark circles under her eyes that even her makeup has not been able to conceal.

"The decision you make in the next few minutes," she says, "is so important. I can't emphasize that enough. I can't make it for you. I can't force you either way. I can only offer you my strongest recommendation that you take the offer that's given. We have a car outside and we can take you back to the Institute immediately, and avoid any... unpleasantness."

She unfolds the glasses, and puts them back on.

"We'll be in the shop."

Turning away quickly, she nods at him and leads the way back out of the room, up the steps and into the entrance hall.

  
Not quite that far, in fact. Grace stops dead at the top of the stairs. And when he reaches the top step, he also draws to an abrupt halt. Ahead is a tall, broad figure in a suit and a striped tie bearing the Brotherhood insignia.

A long moment passes, in which none of the three move. All stand as still as the plastic mannequins along the side of the hall, sporting neat modern-cut clothing rather than faded military uniforms.

"Danse," says Grace, coldly.

The operative opens his mouth and closes it twice before he actually manages to speak. "Adams," he says, eventually. "What are you doing here?"

"Institute business," she says. "You?"

"Brotherhood business," he says.

"The Brotherhood do like their ancient history," she says. "Will you be climbing the monument?"

"No," he says.

She takes off her glasses again, and puts them in their case, the snap of it echoing around the hallway. "Two hundred ninety-four steps, I understand. If you change your mind, do take a bottle of water."

"I'm not here to climb the monument," he says. "I'm here to talk to the people downstairs. You know that. I know that. Now, if you'll please excuse me."

"There's nobody down there," she says.

He stares. She doesn't move.

"I heard talking," he says. "Multiple voices, not just yours."

"There's nobody down there," she repeats.

Of all of the things he's seen over the last few weeks, X6 is most pleased about this one. Not only has she persuaded the rebels to cooperate, she's also actively working against the Brotherhood's interests. But the present situation, with tensions escalating by the moment, still needs to be resolved.

He steps forward. "I suggest you leave," he says.

Danse turns his attention away from Grace, but only barely. "Stay out of this," he says. "This has nothing to do with you."

"Respectfully," says X6. "I disagree."

"Respectfully?" says Danse, narrowing his eyes. "I somehow doubt that. The Institute rarely shows any true level of respect for anyone else."

"Danse," says Grace. "Stop it. This isn't going to get you anywhere."

He looks back at her, and there's an expression on his face that X6 recognizes, but doesn't quite understand, not in the context.

Why would he feeling pain?

"Move aside," says Danse, after a moment. "I won't ask you again."

Grace remains impassive. "What are you going to do? Haul them out at gunpoint?"

"If I have to," he says.

"Well, you won't," she says, lightly. "There's nobody down there."

Even X6 has to admit her continued insistence on that fact is impressive, unconvincing as it may be. But Danse's insistence that he will see for himself is just as unflinching.

"Stay here," says X6. "I will accompany him."

Grace reaches into her purse, pulls out a packet of cigarettes. She taps one into her hand and hangs it loosely between her fingers, a move so practiced it surprises him, having never seen her smoke before.

"Do what you want," she says, before walking away toward the front door, past a giant map of old Boston. "It's a free country."

X6 looks Danse up and down, assessing the level of threat that he might offer. He seems to have a slight advantage in size, but there's no way of judging strength from a single glance. X6 has enough years of training to understand that size is not necessarily an advantage. He can't see any obvious weapons and the operative's hands are resting by his side. Despite Grace's provocation he seems relaxed, though alert.

Realizing that he is still standing in the middle of the stairway, he takes a single step back, so that Danse can make his way down the stairs without having to brush too close to him. So they're side-by-side as they head down toward the coffee shop. Both of them are wearing sets of boots that muffle their footfalls to some degree. X6 counts the steps as they go down, in case he needs to return in a hurry.

Then they're side-by-side as he pushes open the door, gesturing Danse through in front of him with a pretense of politeness. In reality, it's to be able to watch his actions and secure the exit in case anything goes wrong.

They're still side-by-side as they stand next to the cabinet of ancient battle patterns. On the table beyond lie three empty paper cups. Around it lie three empty chairs, left untidily pulled out from their previous position as though vacated in a hurry.

And they're side-by-side as X6 tries to conceal his confusion at the sudden change in circumstances. He can't stop one thought from coming through, shouting through so loudly that when Danse says the words a few moments later it seems to be an echo.

_What the hell just happened?_


	16. Chapter 16

Grace is snapping shut the lighter and taking her first full drag on the cigarette before the glass-panelled entry door has even shut behind her. The smoke burns in her throat and stings her eyes, and it does precious little to stop the trembling in her hands, let alone the fluttering in her chest.

Fuck it all, she thinks. Why does everything have to get so complicated?

She takes a few steps away from the building and tries to gather her thoughts. She has a minute, maybe less until they turn around, come out and start asking questions. She needs to think of a plan, something to say, something to take off the pressure. But she can't stop thinking, can't stop speculating long enough to think to the immediate future and decide what the hell to do.

How did they know? How could the Brotherhood have possibly found out about a secret meeting being held in some random basement in Charlestown? Why would they send someone in the first place, what were they hoping to do here?

And why did they have to send _him_ to do it?

Deep in thought, she nearly trips, her foot catching on a crack that runs jagged across the sidewalk. One side of the broken slab has been forced upward by the roots of a huge tree, one of a line of them growing along the side of the street. Unbalanced and coughing out the smoke that the near-fall had caused her to inhale too quickly, she reaches out to steady herself against it. She recovers quickly, eyes watering, breath returning to normal, but she's distracted so the voice shocks her more than it probably should.

"Nasty habit," it says.

She looks around sharply. There's nobody nearby, not even a tourist in search of tickets or overpriced souvenirs to take home as trophies of the memorable day they climbed a few fucking steps. But then she starts to make out slight breathing sounds, maybe the scuffle of a foot over to her right, and just around the side of the tree she catches sight of a pale and freckled elbow.

She takes another drag on the cigarette and blows a cloud of smoke toward the tree. "Who fucking asked you?"

The owner of the elbow leans around to look at her. She's about to continue in kind, press the issue, _I said, who fucking asked you, asshole?_  but then she recognizes him. His hair's gone, only the faintest trace of red stubble left where previously there had been a whole lot of much darker hair, and he's discarded the usual leather jacket. But his sunglasses are firmly in position, and that lopsided half-smile can only belong to him.

"Nobody," says Deacon, lighting a cigarette of his own. "I just wanted you to know that I disapprove."

"Yeah, well," she says. "I gotta get some kind of hit and it's too early to be drinking, isn't it."

Kick one habit, replace it with another. Always the way.

"In this country, yes," he says. "In most of them, actually. I mean, nine o'clock in the morning? Ouch. That's painful enough without being drunk too."

It's almost a relief to see him. She hates it.

"Quit fucking around," she says. "Did you get them out or not?"

His smile fades, but only briefly. "Yeah," he says. "Thanks."

She closes her eyes, lifts her cigarette to her lips and this time when the smoke fills her lungs it does seem to have the desired effect. She feels calmer, more relaxed and it must be the nicotine because it can hardly be relief for the safety of the three in the basement. She doesn't give a shit about them, she's practically forgotten their names already. They don't deserve the Institute's bullshit, sure, but that's hardly going to stop just because they get a few new bits of paperwork. A shiny new driver's license, a fake-aged birth certificate, you can get those anywhere. Doesn't do a damn bit of good if you don't know what you're doing.

_You can't escape your past._

Besides that, she's still going to have to answer to two angry operatives, who are probably down there in the basement right now. Which one's going to be more pissed, Grace? The one who thought there was someone down there? Or the one who knows there was?

Which one are you going to reassure of your excellent intentions?

That's obvious, she thinks. Whichever one I need the most.

She opens her eyes and she's half-surprised to see Deacon still standing there, leaning casually against the tree. Normally it's blink and he's gone. Don't blink and he's still gone, melting into the crowd like he was never even there in the first place. But there he is, still looking at her, still watching her, and whether that's expectantly, impatiently, or some other adverb she can't think of right now she can't tell.

She flicks ash into the street. "I thought we weren't supposed to talk?"

"We're not," he says. "I just had something to tell you but I forgot my invisible ink, and you know, no time to look up the codes, all the ixnay on the uh... yeah, that stuff."

"What is it then?" she asks. "Is it the data? Do you have anything yet?"

She'd finally managed to drop off the second disk a few days after Maxson had forced her to hand over the first. It had taken three coffee shops and a riverboat ticket collector to arrange a place to have her pocket picked in broad daylight. X6 had been with her and absolutely none the wiser for it.

So much for him being the highest trained operative in the Institute.

"Tom's working on it," he says. "The encryption is pretty tight. He's not pulled out much usable information yet, but what he has..."

He hesitates, and he's obviously looking over her shoulder toward the building.

"Out with it," she says.

"Listen," he says. "It's just preliminary intel, and we're still going through making sure it's right, trying to verify. I'm not really supposed to say anything yet. It's just that..."

She gesticulates with her cigarette. "Care to beat around the bush a bit more? I mean, I've got all day to stand in the road and listen to you stutter."

"I'm not messin' with you," he says. "It's just that... aw, hell."

  
With a sigh, she holds her cigarette out in front of her, drops it, and when it's rolled to a stop she grinds it underfoot. She doesn't look up. She doesn't have to, she already knows what she'll see. On her right, nothing, because he'll have disappeared. On her left will be the two operatives, the finest of their respective organizations, bearing down on her with only one thing in mind.

Berate Grace.

Get answers.

Good fucking luck with that.

She keeps looking down, now staring at the flattened cigarette butt lying in the dirt, now inspecting her fingernails, until she can see two pairs of feet in the corner of her vision. Then she raises her eyes, slowly, smoothly.

She can, because she's calm again.

She _is_.

They stand side-by-side, their glares matching almost as closely as their suits, mouths set in hard lines. They settle, uneasily, as distant from each other as they are from her. She waits for one of them to break the silence. She knows she won't have to wait long, and she knows who'll do it, too, accompanied by a gentle frown and an air of concern that will indicate that he's taking far too much responsibility for her actions.

Or, that was how it always used to be.

"Where are they?" asks Danse.

She's right on one count, at least. But the frown isn't gentle, it furrows his brow with deep, shadowed creases. As for any air, it's not concern. He just seems tired. He looks as bad as Grace feels, in fact, with dark shadows under his eyes, his cheeks oddly hollowed, and maybe even a few new gray hairs above his ears. When the sun comes out from behind a cloud he winces, his eyes seeming slow to adjust to the brightness.

It's tempting to relax, now she knows the three are away, to relent and give him a little bit of hope to go on. But X6 is still staring at her, and she still doesn't quite know if there's another pair of eyes behind his right now.

So she pulls out her packet of cigarettes, and taps out another into her palm.

"Who?" she asks.

Danse looks away, then, out into the street, and for half a second Grace's heart batters at her ribcage with fear that he's spotted Deacon's retreat. But he just takes a heavier breath and touches his tongue to his lower lip in a gesture she's never seen before. When he looks back at her, she understands what it is. She's annoyed him before, yes. Disappointed him, certainly. But she's never made him angry. Not like this. Brow drawn down low, patches of red on his cheeks, almost leaning forward with his need to confront her.

It's hardly surprising. Here she is standing in the street, lying up and down, right to his face. She's being backed up by an Institute operative in matching sunglasses who was also, presumably, peddling the same lie.

_You see, sir. There's nobody down here. You were mistaken._

She'd be furious, too.

She pulls her lighter from her pocket, clutching it hard in her hand. She can't relax yet. Even after this, the first message that comes through will likely be the same as the rest. We need more time, it'll say. Keep working with them. The longer you remain on the inside, the better chance we have. Hang in there. You're doing great.

_You're doing the right thing._

_The right thing_ , as she hands some poor bastard right back to the Institute.

_The right thing_ , as she gives them information on a scientist they might like to 'encourage' into the fold.

_The right thing_ , as she purges all those thoughts and turns to face him.

"Grace," he says. "Please. This is absurd."

He's not wrong. She looks down at her feet again. Though the half of the broken slab on which she's standing is barely a quarter inch higher than the other, she feels as though she's on the edge of a precipice. A single wrong move and it's all over. Nobody to catch her, nobody to care if she falls.

Perhaps it would be easier, but it's just a broken slab. The ground is still there, hard beneath her feet, even as X6 attempts to take control of the situation.

"Sir," he says. "I must ask you to cease this line of questioning."

"Back off," says Danse, his eyes narrowed in anger.

"We are engaged in important and confidential business," says X6, slowly and clearly. "Please stop interfering or I will be forced to take action."

"Are you threatening me?" asks Danse. "I suggest you do not."

"That's enough," she says. "Both of you."

They both turn, then, and look right at her and once again it's clear that they're both thinking the same thing.

_Who are you to tell me what to do._

Or is that just what she'd think?

"X6," she says, her voice as clear and commanding as she can manage. "Go on ahead. I'll catch up."

His face remains entirely impassive and his body completely still.

"I hardly think it appropriate..."

"Go," she says. "This is personal."

"Very well," he says, icily. He takes a last look at Danse, his gaze apparently lingering on the man, but he doesn't accompany it with a parting quip. That's not his way. He simply turns and walks away toward the car, straight-backed, hardly looking either side of him as he crosses the street.

  
Danse turns to her the moment X6 disappears from view. Now his brow is softer, his shoulders lowering and his voice less harsh.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

_No. Am I ever?_

But she nods, because that's what he's expecting. That's what everyone expects.

"Please, Grace," he says. "Tell me where they are."

She finally lights the cigarette, almost forgotten in her hand. As she turns it in her fingers, the gold casing of the lighter is hot from her palm. She thinks of all the things she could say. They're safe, they're away, they're not going to have their minds wiped or stolen or given to someone else. They're not going to be used as a weapon against their friends, against the city, against the world. And maybe if you send out the right message on the right channel, one or two of them might just come and sing to you.

But she still doesn't know what he really wants with them, what the Brotherhood wants with them. Whether they want to question or interrogate, to ask for help or demand it, to put them under just as much pressure as the Institute themselves.

So all the explanations float away with the smoke she blows from her lips, leaving just one word behind.

"Who?" she asks.

He rubs his brow with his hand, his balance shifting onto his back foot as though he's about to walk away. But he doesn't. Instead, he looks back and fixes her with dark, confused eyes.

"I don't understand," he says. "Why are you protecting them?"

The response seems obvious, repeat the obnoxious question all over again, _who, who, who, you sound like a fucking owl, Grace,_ but the thought of it makes her suddenly tired; she knows who he means. The Institute. He's wrong, there's a whole other shadowy organization for which she's somehow the sole stalwart protector. But that hardly matters, at this point.

"I have my reasons," she says.

It's not enough. It's really not enough. She knows it wouldn't be enough for her, _what reasons, Grace, perhaps you'd like to explain them for me as they're so important to you._

But now she's sounding like someone she's tried very hard to forget. She swallows down the nausea that always comes with the thought of her, damps it down further with another long drag on that cigarette. She looks around to find something to focus on. Her gaze settles across the road, on the monument that reaches up into the sky, glowing bright in the morning sun. She watches it for a moment, watches clouds scud through the sky behind it, wonders if there are any tourists up in that top room looking down through scratched perspex windows.

Then Danse clears his throat, the sound dragging her back. When she looks up at him, his expression is uncertain, and his voice when he speaks is hardly more confident.

"Are you being coerced, in some way?" he asks.

"No," she says, but he doesn't listen.

"I can help," he says. "We can help. The Brotherhood looks after their own. We can protect you."

"I don't need protecting," she says. "Why does everyone think that? And why do you even give a shit?"

"Because I care," he says. "As a friend, I mean..."

"I'm not your friend," she says, cutting him off before he can correct himself.

"Perhaps not," he says, after a moment. "But I do, nonetheless. I don't want to see your potential go to waste."

She's been trying so hard to moderate her expression, to try to conceal the turmoil just bubbling beneath the surface. But she can't help her reaction to that. Her mouth falls open in surprise, and before she can stop herself she laughs. Because of course. _Of course._ It's the Brotherhood. It's all about the Brotherhood in the end, what she can do for them. How they can use her to their advantage. Just like everyone else.

Grace, she thinks. Did you really think they they were done with you? You really are a fucking idiot.

_He'll do anything you tell him. Click your fingers, he'll come runnin'._

Only if the Brotherhood click their fingers at him.

"Look," she says. "I gave you the data you wanted. What more do you want from me?"

"I want the truth," he says, his eyebrows rising as though the question has taken him by surprise.

"The truth?"

"About you," he says, composing himself. "You're not who you say you are. You never have been, not since the moment you walked in the front door."

She laughs. Of course he hasn't forgotten about that. How could he? He probably ran straight back to the Brotherhood with that little bit of information. "And what does Arthur think of that?"

But he's silent.

"You haven't told him?" she asks.

"I wanted to give you a chance to explain," he says. "After everything that we've been through, I at least owed you that."

We? _We?_

"Stop," she says. "just stop. There is no 'we'. You were in my house because I had to let you in. Don't kid yourself that it was anything more than a business arrangement."

She's already walking away by the time he says her name again.

At least he uses the right one.

  
A few moments later, Grace settles into the passenger seat of X6's car and tries to breathe lightly. The trembling hasn't returned but the unease and discomfort has only intensified from her conversation with Danse. She looks across at X6. His hand rests on the seat beside his leg, a quiet gesture that makes it clear they won't be moving until he decides it.

"Where are they?" he asks.

Even through her distress, Grace has to bite back the urge to reply as she had before.

_Who?_

"I don't know," she says.

"Ma'am," he says. "I know that's not true."

"It is true," she says. "I don't know where they are. But they're not giving evidence to the Brotherhood. Isn't that the most important thing?"

"It is not my position to judge," he says. "But when the Director hears..."

"He'll understand," she says.

_She's got a fan._

Perhaps she relies on that fact too much. But it's too late to worry about that now.

"Just put their names on the list," she says, bitterly. "It's not like they'll get far."


	17. Chapter 17

Clouds pass in front of the sun, casting indistinct shadows that move swiftly over the concrete and up the steps toward the monument. Danse stares at the figures slowly walking toward and away from it, now in shadow, now in sun. His anger begins to dissipate but is only replaced by a melancholy that's even harder to shake off.

It meant nothing to her. None of it. Not the idle conversations, not the hours spent in comfortable silence, nothing. The gifts of cakes and coffees and even the friendly smiles that came with them were lies, and the idea that how he had come to feel for her could be reciprocated was just that. An idea. A fantasy.

But perhaps it's better this way. He doesn't have to keep thinking of all the what ifs, the ones that have kept him awake at night, the ones that torment him whenever he sees her face, whenever he even thinks of her.

_What if I reach out to her?_

_What if I say something?_

_What if I'd ever said anything worthwhile?_

But it's foolish to think of such things. It's over. It never started.

_You were never even friends, she told you herself._

He takes a deep breath and tries to return to the order of the day. He should report the incident. Arthur had stated, categorically, that all contact with her was to cease until such a time as he instructed otherwise.

He needs to know about this, and he needs to know it was her.

Damnit.

He should have told of his suspicions as soon as they came to light. He should have taken that letter and handed it over to Quinlan for investigation. The question of who she is isn't his to answer, it's not his job or duty. And now through this misplaced sense of affection he's delayed the investigation, perhaps even held back the whole project.

His hand settles on the phone in his pocket. The sooner he calls it in, the better. But what will he say?

_I arrived at the location to find Institute operatives already in situ. Targets for questioning were already gone._

_How? Did you see them leave?_

_No. I believe they left through an alternative exit of which we were previously unaware._

_How is that possible?_

_The building is old and has been renovated and altered many a time since it was first built. It stands to reason that there may be hidden routes to the outside._

_Were they even there to begin with?_

_Who_ , he thinks, bitterly.

On reflection, he's certain that they had in fact been present. The male operative - X6, Grace had called him, perhaps a codename - had also seemed surprised to find the basement coffee shop deserted. Not obviously; the man concealed most of his expressions very effectively. But there had been a shift in his stance, almost imperceptible but just enough that Danse's years of training had kicked into action. He'd initially readied himself for an assault, but the operative had only glanced around the room, just as sharply as he had himself.

Unless it was another act. That's what they do, after all.

That's what she's been doing for a long time.

He lets go of the phone to rub his hand over his eyes. The ever-present pain in his skull throbs, viciously, the worst it's been since leaving the Capital. It had woken him during the night, little relief from the recurrent dreams that plague him, in which he is someone else entirely with a family and friends that he at once knows and does not know.

Confused and frustrated at his own heightened level of distraction, he runs through the report once more, and prepares himself to make the call.

He should make the call.

He should make the call right away.

Instead, he begins to walk.

  
The trail of red bricks stretches out before him. It's broken in places where the sidewalk has been turned over to dig in telephone cables or wires, replaced afterward with a strip of fresh red brick or a sloppy stripe of paint. He follows it for a few blocks but feels like he's being led, like he's a machine following a path that's been laid out for it, so he turns away from it.

He makes his way through back streets, past ancient wooden-fronted houses and high-rise apartment buildings, a dozen styles of architecture crammed in next to one another. His throat is dry and his stomach twists with a sudden craving for a shot of whiskey to settle his nerves, maybe to help clear that pain. He shakes his head, surprised by and ashamed of the thought but he recognizes that he does need something to combat this thick-headedness and inability to focus on the task in hand.

As luck has it, on the next corner is a coffee shop, all glass windows and garish signage. He pushes open the door and heads inside. It's bright, too bright. The floor is smooth, glossy and unmarked by shoes, the furniture all perfectly matched and arranged around spotless tables. The place is entirely empty but for a barista wearing a yellow apron almost as bright as his fake smile. The board above his head lists a dozen variations of products that bear no resemblance to any drinks Danse knows.

"Just a coffee," he mutters.

He takes his drink to the window, climbing onto a tall wooden chair and almost immediately regretting his decision, the seat turning out to be far more hard and uncomfortable than it looked. But it seems foolish to move now, so he settles down and stares out into the street, seeing nothing.

_There is no 'we'. Don't kid yourself._

_Stop it._

The door swings open, letting in a waft of pollution-filled air and a figure, male, who passes immediately out of view. His conversation with the barista is muted, far quieter than the subsequent hissing of the machine as it spits out scalding liquid.

After a few moments, the chair next to him scrapes back over the floor.

Danse ignores it, and the person climbing up onto it, swirling his coffee in its paper cup. Perhaps if he returns to the museum he can find some clues as to where the participants of the meeting had disappeared, and maybe why. He'd assumed they would be willing to talk - if they were meeting in secret, away from the Institute, why _wouldn't_ they want to talk to the Brotherhood? Why would it come to dragging them out by force, as Grace had seemed to think was his intention?

He's jarred from his thoughts by the sensation rather than the sound of his phone ringing. He ignores it for the moment, leaving it face down on the counter, letting himself pretend it's not who he already knows it is.

But that's foolish.

He turns it over, and the name glowing brightly on the screen is as he expected. Arthur Maxson. This is the first call he's had from him for weeks. Ever since the incident in the Third Rail, all his instructions had come from Quinlan.

He picks up the phone, his thumb hovering over the screen but hesitating even before his neighbor speaks.

"Don't answer that," he says.

The obvious retort is simply to ignore the man and answer the call. There is no rule against taking phonecalls in a public area. The volume is low and it is hardly the sort of cacophonous ringtone preferred by most people in the city. And perhaps he should let it slide but the intrusive suggestion proves to be one irritation too many.

"If you didn't wish to hear a phonecall," he says, turning to his neighbor, "perhaps you shouldn't have sat right next to me. There is adequate space..."

His voice trails away at the sight of him. Leather jacket, dark hair, dark sunglasses. At once he recognizes him as the person who had crashed into Grace outside the Institute, and as the man from the photographs in the Third Rail. From this close, he sees pale eyebrows almost invisible against his skin, and fine lines across his forehead and around his mouth.

The phone falls silent in his hand.

"Hi," says the man. "We need to talk."

Danse looks behind himself to scan the room but it's still as empty as it was before.

"It's okay," he continues. "I'm alone, unarmed, all that jazz. I'm not convinced this place is clean, though. Well. It's a little too clean, you know? I prefer a little grime in my beverage-providing establishments, seems more honest."

"What do you want?"

"We have a mutual friend," he says.

He can only mean Grace. Danse stares at him. "She's not my friend," he says, and the words come out far more harshly than he was intending.

The pale eyebrows rise, but his tone remains steady. "Friends, acquaintances, same thing from where I'm sitting. But I get you. Grace is a bit like that. Like... Marmite. You ever tried that?"

Danse shakes his head.

"Disgusting stuff," he replies. "I bet your man Quinlan has a stash of it in his office. All Brits do, you know that? Fact."

"How do you know about Quinlan... who are you? What the hell is this?"

"Who am I? Doesn't matter," he replies. "But this stage I guess it can't hurt. Name's Deacon, hey, how do you do. I know who you are so let's skip the smalltalk and get down to business."

He opens up his jacket to pull out a brown folder from an inside pocket. He unfolds it, holds it in his hands and remains still, silent but for the tapping of his fingers on the cover as though he's waiting for something to happen. Then he places it on the counter and slides it toward Danse.

"I know," he says, "retro, so much for a paperless office, et cetera et cetera. But, you know. At least paper's recyclable. The internet is forever."

Danse looks at the folder, not touching it. "What is this?"

"This," says Deacon, "is what we've got out of that data our... Grace swiped from the Institute. Amongst some other things, of course, but this... well. This is the kicker."

"Why are you showing this to me?"

"Because... ah hell. Listen, my instructions were to give it to Grace but... I didn't think it was the right thing to do. You saw her, right? She's not exactly in 'listen carefully and take the most sensible course of action' mode at the moment."

Danse continues to stare at it, feeling more stupid by the moment. "Why would you give this to me? I can't imagine your superiors would approve."

"It doesn't just affect her," says Deacon. "And from one lowly operative to another? You know that sometimes you gotta use your initiative and do something the man in the tower wouldn't necessarily like you doing. Or the woman in the basement, in my case. That... sounds kinda bad but it is a nice basement. Go on. Take a look."

He feels he should perhaps resist but curiosity gets the better of him. He opens up the folder. It contains a number of notes, data sheets, memos. Printouts of emails, and what seems to be audio files transcribed in chicken-scratch handwriting that's almost illegible, a far cry from Quinlan's neat script.

_Police department providing groups too small for effective testing of new implants. Operative sent to ensure quotas met. Suggest follow-up; expand remit to wider area?_

_B5-92 absented self from designated area and tasks, refuses to cooperate with level 1 re-integration request. Implant may be faulty. Current location: Libertalia. Operatives to be sent for retrieval._

Implants.

Of all the things he expected the data to prove, that was not one of them. This was the rumor that had been discussed in corners of the Citadel even before they'd left the Capital. _They can record memories, you know. They have operatives in every major corporation and government office making sure that decisions go in their favor. Some of them don't even know what they are._ That whole thing had been posited in an article published in the Commonwealth's most popular newspaper, but quickly retracted.

Perhaps too quickly.

"Implants?" he says, incredulously.

Deacon nods. "Yeah. All that memory stuff. Not a myth, not the paranoid delusions of some journalist trying to make it big. They've got eyes everywhere. And it gets worse."

Up until now, it's seemed that Deacon has been trying to be light-hearted and laid-back, but he's becoming increasingly agitated, rubbing his hand over his mouth and shifting uncomfortably on his seat. "There's no easy way to do this," he says, and flips through folder until he finds a few sheets, the top corners of which are ripped and hanging loose as if they had previously been stapled together. He pushes them toward Danse. "I'm sorry."

_Testing group 7c, says the title. Implant - personality prototype. Chems - enhanced buffout._

It's followed by a list of names he doesn't know, followed by an expanded document filled with photographs of individuals, none of whom he recognizes.

That is, except one.

Himself.

He stares back from the sheet, younger by at least five years, but seeming just as tired and confused as he feels today. Next to it, as with all the photographs, lie a few lines of text.

_Subject ID: M7-97_   
_Charge(s): Petty theft. Possession and use of illicit chems. Assault._   
_Notes: QF. Resistant. Recommend full wipe._

No.

_No._

He looks up, alsmost wildly, seeing another reflection of himself in the curved lenses of Deacon's sunglasses. He feels a furious urge to rip them from his face, to hurl them on the floor and demand the truth.

"This isn't me," he says, angrily. "This is some kind of fabrication."

"Fraid not," says Deacon.

It must be an attempt to threaten him, to blackmail him. Perhaps he wishes to get information on the Brotherhood.

It's not going to work.

"This is absurd," says Danse. "What do you hope to achieve with this? What do you think you're going to get from me?"

He expects the man to break down, to issue threats, to reveal his true purpose. He doesn't. He takes off the glasses of his own accord, and fixes him with a pair of pale blue eyes. "You have to believe me," he says. "This is legit. And I'm sorry, this is a shitty way to tell you but there isn't exactly a good way, you know?"

Danse looks back down at the page, his eye caught again by the words next to his younger self. Chem use? Assault? He's never done anything like that in his life. He'd never have been allowed in the Brotherhood if he had.

He slams shut the folder.

"I don't believe it," he says.

"You get headaches?" asks Deacon. "Maybe a side-order of dysphoria? Intrusive thoughts, memories that don't seem to sit still?"

He doesn't reply. He tries not to react at all. Perhaps he fails, because Deacon nods as though he's agreed. "Yeah. We thought it was a myth, too, back when were just dealing with chems. But we were getting people coming in with serious psychological trauma, amnesia, multiple personalities, the whole shebang. All they knew was that they'd been taking a few grape mentats every now and again. I mean, that shit's got side-effects but nothing like this."

"I don't believe it," repeats Danse, insistent. "I don't know what you're trying to achieve here, but you won't succeed."

Deacon continues to look him in the eyes, his expression as earnest as ever. "They messed with your head, Danse. They found some excuse to bring you in and test shit on you. That's what they do, that's what they've always done. They've just... stepped it up."

"This can't be me," says Danse, shaking his head. "I'm from the Capital. I grew up there, I've always lived there. How do you explain that?"

Deacon shrugs. "I can't. But sometimes the Institute gets shit wrong. For every well-behaved operative who does exactly as they're told, there's someone turns up in the streets with a pocketful of chems and no idea how they got there. Maybe someone got you out."

They stare at each other for a few moments, Danse's brain stubbornly refusing to cooperate and think of a way out of the situation, only repeating those three little words.

_Recommend full wipe._

Then his phone rings, again, and he reaches out to it on reflex.

Deacon's hand catches his. "You gotta leave it," he says. "If he's calling you this often, chances are they've found exactly the same information we have. And that's not good for you."

"I should answer," he says. "Maybe I can explain..."

"They're not gonna listen," he says. "Not a chance. You didn't get a choice in the matter. But your buddies in your fancy tower aren't going to see it like that. As far as they're concerned, you're Institute now."

His chest tightens, the pain behind his eyes flaring up once again.

_Is that where it is?_

"Listen," says Deacon, his tone a little softer. "My organization is... versed in this sort of thing. We can get you help but you need to lie low for a while. Find someone. Someone who'll look after you and not ask too many questions. But not Grace. Definitely not Grace."

"I don't know anyone else," says Danse.

Deacon gives a tired smile and gets to his feet, replacing his glasses. "You're resourceful. I'm sure you'll find somewhere. Just don't use your phone, and don't use your credit cards. Oh, and... don't get in any cars you didn't bring from the Capital."

Bewildered, Danse looks up. "Why not?"

"Just something a colleague of mine's gotten into his head. It's probably just paranoia, but you know. Better safe than sorry."

Deacon touches a finger to his forehead and departs. The door slams shut behind him, sending another jolt of pain through Danse's head. His eyes water as he tries to focus through the bright morning sunshine, watching Deacon crossing the street. He's shading his eyes against the sun with one hand, and at the same time a few flashes of white fall from the other, twisting and turning in the air as they fall to the ground, crushed into the concrete or whipped back up by the cars that continue to pass long after he's gone.

Danse stares at them, oblivious to everything else.

_Recommend full wipe._

This can't be true.


	18. Chapter 18

The Director had not been in his office when Grace returned. Instead, a receptionist that she thought was the same one as usual but might just have been another widely-smiling automaton directed her to a lower floor of the building, to a common room she'd never entered before.

One wall is largely dominated by a television screen, currently showing the frenetic and depressing display of a 24/7 news channel, muted and as unnaturally silent as the rest of the building. Three or four of the uncomfortable Institute-issue red plastic benches are scattered around in front of it, a study in informality. A low table carries some pristine magazines, entirely untouched by whoever does actually to use this room.

The Director is sitting as stiffly as ever on one of those benches, his shoulders held tight and high. His breathing sounds painful and labored and she wonders whether he has failed to mention his obvious illness through pride or shame or some other reason.

At the sound of her footsteps on the linoleum floor he glances away from the television.

"Sit," he says. "Please."

Grace does so, choosing a seat a little way distant from him. She crosses her feet under the chair and holds herself straight, her purse on the seat beside her.

"Look at it", he says, gesturing toward the screen. "Every day something new. Corruption, pollution, devastation. Humans are so unreliable, don't you think? Taking to the stand and lying, making promises and never delivering. They will swear blind that they never said or did what they patently did, all for some notion of personal gain."

He points directly at the screen this time, at a figure who blusters silently before disappearing to be replaced by a scene of environmental chaos. Dead trees, scorched land, skies full of smoke. "If that man had one of our implants, none of this would have happened."

"Hardly," she says. "It would still have happened. He just wouldn't get away with it."

"Perhaps it might still have happened this time," he replies. "But not with the next, which at the moment is an inevitability. He will twist and turn his way out of the immediate personal consequences, and then instead of learning from the experience he will simply know how better to conceal his tracks next time."

And that sounds like learning from experience to Grace, but she swallows the words before they come out. He doesn't seem to be in the mood to be questioned on high politics.

But she can't resist a little nudge.

"Have you considered getting one?" she asks. "An implant, I mean."

He laughs, gently, shaking his head. "Oh, no. There is quite enough happening in this old skull for my liking. While the procedure carries fewer risks than some forms of cosmetic surgery - albeit the more drastic kinds - such an invasive procedure is hardly recommended at my advanced age. One of the disadvantages of the somewhat cumbersome size of the implant, relatively speaking of course. But now that the functionality is almost perfected, we are able to focus on refining the design."

He reaches for the remote and switches off the TV, the image of yet another asshole politician and the devastation they've caused blinking away into black.

"We're almost ready," he says, a serious note in his voice, an imprecation.

_Ask me. Please._

"Ready for what?" she asks, obediently.

"To begin the third phase," he says, and he pauses dramatically before speaking again. "The public roll-out."

"Public?" she says, and perhaps she's more tired than she thought because she feels the corner of her mouth twitching up. As if anyone would agree to this shit if they didn't have to.

But he nods, and his expression is entirely serious.

"Oh," she says.

"Initially, of course, we expect there to be something of an outcry," he says. "People will not understand what we have been doing here. But when they have seen the benefits and what we have done so far, I believe that one day these implants will be as ubiquitous as an identity card. And the world will be better for it. Imagine. Crime rates will plummet, politicians will be honest. Mental illness will be a thing of the past. Lives will be saved..."

In Grace's purse, her phone is ringing, the silenced device sending out a low-pitched hum.

He frowns at the sound. "But, all in due time," he says, seeming to have lost his train of thought.

The phone falls still but she's grateful for the interruption because she can fight down her incredulity and pretend to understand what the fuck he's talking about.

_Public roll-out? What the actual fuck?_

He takes a deep breath and continues. "I must ask this, though it pains me to have to do so. Your operation today was not a success. Please, tell me. What happened?"

She's slightly unnerved by the quick change of subject but it's not like she wasn't prepared for it, right from the moment she sat down in X6's car in the morning. She knew there would be a fight, and here it is.

"The operation proceeded as normal," she says, her voice as smooth and official as she can make it. "We discovered the meeting, which was taking place in the expected location. I informed them of their obligations and offered them amnesty."

"Why, then, have they not yet returned with you?"

"They chose not to take it."

"And why do you think that is?" he persists.

"I don't know," she says.

He nods, as if considering her answer. "Where are they now?"

_Who?_

"I don't know," she says, and that at least is the absolute truth. That part wasn't her job. It's Deacon's, or whatever Railroad agent had to crack the lock on the old fire escape and get them out in the sixty second window she'd bought them.

Shaun shifts uncomfortably on his seat. "I am aware that there was a Brotherhood operative present."

"There was."

"One well-known to you."

"Yes."

He takes a breath before speaking, but not one of pain. One of thought. "Members of my staff will be curious as to how the Brotherhood knew of the meeting in the first place."

The unspoken question is clear.

_Did you tell them?_

She holds his stare and leaves her answer unspoken, too.

_Of course not._

"Members of your staff," she says. "What about you?"

"I am also curious, that is true," he says. "But I have faith in you. They do not see in you what I see."

"What's that," she asks, covering her rising discomfort.

_She's got a fan._

"Potential."

"Potential?"

"Yes. I believe you have it in you..."

Beside her, the phone rings again, silencing him once more.

"Damnit," she says, digging through her purse, quietly grateful for the interruption. "I should have turned it off."

Drawing it out, she stares at it until falls silent again, waiting until the name and number is replaced by her own reflection in the black screen, dark and indistinct.

"A friend?" asks Shaun.

Grace takes a cautious breath. "No," she says.

She returns her attention to him but he's distracted now, shaking his head in confusion. "Perhaps now is not the time," he says. "Go, attend to your business. We can talk later."

  
Less than an hour later, the elevator doors slide silently open and Grace steps out onto the top floor of the Prydwen. Maxson is standing in his usual position in front of the window, hands clasped behind his back.

"You wanted to see me?" she asks.

He tells her to sit without turning around. It's not a request. It's an order, just as terse and cold as the message he'd left on her phone after the five calls she'd ignored before it.

  _Come to the Prydwen. Immediately._

Whereas before she might have perched on the corner of the desk or dropped herself into his own chair behind the desk just to remind him that he doesn't own her, he doesn't get to order her around like that, now... now she's just tired.

So she sits, in the chair in front of the desk, as neatly and politely as any client.

He glances over his shoulder. His beard is thicker than she's ever seen it before, scruffy by comparison with his hair which is as immaculate as if he'd just stepped out of the barbershop.

He seems surprised, or at least mildly taken aback and whether it's her appearance that's seemed to shock everyone lately or the fact that she's done as she's told she's not sure. But as she leans back in the chair she realises just how tired she is. Tired of the games, tired of the baiting, tired of the fighting.

But it seems that he's not ready to stop yet.

He turns back to face the window and sets his shoulders firm.

"How long have you been working for them?" he asks.

His voice is quiet but still carries that undertone of anger from which it's never really free. He doesn't move, doesn't turn around, just stares silently out of the window while he waits for her reply.

Grace blinks, slowly, moderates her tone to be cool and precise. "Working for who, exactly?"

"The Institute," he says, just as coolly.

"Since you sent me in through the front door," she replies.

"You mean since you walked right in there, discarding all our preparatory work as if it were useless," he says.

"I already explained my reasons for that," she replies. "I wouldn't have made it two steps into the building with your third-rate cover story. We've been through this before, why are you bringing it up again?"

But that's obvious. Danse has told him everything, and now everything she's ever said will have to be turned over, interrogated, and thrown back at her in the form of an accusation. This was a mistake. She should have made him wait, she should have gone home and given herself a chance to prepare. But in her eagerness to get away from the Institute, away from the Director's increasingly insane pronouncements, she'd decided to cross town and get it over and done with.

_Grace, you're an idiot._

Maxson turns to face her, fully. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are glittering with anger.

"How long have you been working with him?" he asks.

And that makes even less sense but for a brief, sickening moment she wonders if he means Deacon, if Danse did perhaps see her talking to him outside the museum at Bunker Hill. But that's ridiculous. He couldn't possibly have recognized him. Where would he ever have seen him before to do so?

But she can't fret about this for long so she forces out a _what?_ that's met by a disbelieving stare.

"You heard me," he says. "Just answer the question."

"I don't even know who you're talking about," she says. "The Director? Well, that would be May 26th, shortly after I walked in the front door. As we arranged."

"Not him," he says, furiously. "I mean Danse. I know you're working with him. I don't know how you did it, or how long ago it started but I _know_."

"Danse?" she says. "I'm not... We're not... what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Stop trying to play innocent," he says. "You're just wasting my time."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Arthur. Working with Danse? I hadn't even seen the guy for two weeks..."

"Don't 'Arthur' me," he interrupts, his eyes fixed on hers. "He's with the Institute. He has one of their implants."

The shock hits her full-force, knocking the air from her lungs as effectively as a physical blow.

"What?" she exclaims, but he just glares at her and doesn't elaborate. She shakes her head as much to clear the confusion as to emphasize her denial. "No, that... that can't be true."

"It's true," he says, pointing at the folder. "The proof is right there, freshly decoded from the data you so kindly obtained for us. Ironic, don't you think?"

She doesn't reply, doesn't know how to. This is madness, absolute madness and somehow it seems even more insane than the Director's ramblings such a short time ago.

Maxson moves away from the window, coming to sit in the chair on the other side of the desk. He leans back and rests his elbow on the arm of it. "With that in mind," he says, his tone icy cold. "I'll ask you again. How long have you been working with him?"

"I haven't," she says. "I had no idea about this, you have to believe me."

But even as she says it fragments of conversation come to her mind, things that seemed familiar at the time but not enough to concern her. Stories of colleagues, of incidents during training, even memories from college that were just mundane enough for it to be possible that two or any number of people could have had similar experiences.

All except Cutler. That was always far too much of a coincidence.

"There has to be a mistake," she says, even though she knows full well that there isn't. He has a chip. And on it are the last traces of Nate that exist outside the Institute's servers.

_Honey. It's okay. It's going to be okay._

She thought only part of it had been a lie. But all of it was.

 _Nate_ , she thinks. _How could you?_

Maxson opens the folder and flips idly through the pages. "This file contains intake notes for a test group, being used for... personality prototyping. All received some form of implant and a variety of chems." And with an expression of disgust on his face he turns the file around and pushes it toward her.

She scans the page and sure enough, from half-way down it Danse's face looks back at her, wearing almost the same expression of hurt confusion as he'd worn that morning.

_I'm not your friend._

"There is absolutely no doubt about this," continues Maxson. "There is additional medical information in further files, that we have been able to verify against our own records. Furthermore, Danse has disappeared. Proctor Quinlan informs me that he did not report in for a debriefing session earlier today."

Grace knows that can only relate to the meeting at the museum. And if he hasn't reported back in, he hasn't told them anything about her. She feels a dizzying rush of relief that is quickly followed by even more guilt that she needs to contain before it incriminates her further.

"Perhaps something went wrong," she says, cautiously.

"In which case the procedure is to call for backup. This was an operation that would have been crucial for our project. It has apparently failed, this information has come to light, and he is gone. It seems a little convenient, don't you think?"

She stares at the file again, unable to reply.

"Not to mention this... degenerate past of his that he has somehow managed to conceal from us," he says. "I find it very hard now to believe that he is not working for them. It's my belief that he was sent to us to spy on, and perhaps even to sabotage our efforts. He must be stopped."

"Even if this is true," she says. "It's not his fault. He won't be doing it because he wants to. He probably doesn't even know."

"I find that extremely difficult to believe," he says.

But he can't know. He _can't_. There's absolutely no way he'd be able to look her in the eyes and conceal this big of a lie for so long. He's just like Nate, in that way.

Just like Nate.

_Who never told you about the shit he let them put in his head, did he now?_

"Why are you telling me this anyway?" she asks, struggling to bring her mind back to the conversation.

"Because I want you to find him," he replies.

Alarm bells ring in her mind, and her every nerve sings along with them.

It's a trap.

_But for me? Or for him?_

"Why me?" she asks.

"If he returns to the Institute," says Maxson, "I want you to use your... unique position to draw him back out."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Find him. Bring him back."

"I don't understand," she says. "What will you even do if he does come back?"

He looks away before replying, and the alarm bells ring ever louder. "That's none of your concern."

"Oh, it is," she says. "I'm not just going to hand him over to you without knowing what you intend to do. You need to give me some assurances..."

"Don't try to act like you have principles now," he says. "You've done everything the Institute has asked of you without argument."

"On your orders," she says, angrily.

He lets out a disbelieving half-laugh, and continues to avoid her gaze, and that's more than she can bear. So she stands and presses her hands on the edge of the desk, leaning forward and almost hissing in her anger. "How dare you," she says. "You put me in this position and now you want to use it against me?"

He rises, matches her posture. "Convince me," he says. "You want me to believe you're not working with him or _them_? Bring him to me."

"This is wrong," she says, shaking her head. "It's not his fault."

He makes to slam his hand on the desk, but seems to catch it just before he does. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Because this is what they do," she says. "It says it right in the file. They take people, vulnerable people, people who can't say no and force them to participate in these trials. You can't seriously have looked at this and decided that he _wanted_ to be a part of it? Are you that blind?"

"It hardly matters if he wanted to be involved," he says. "The fact is that he is, and I have to deal with that."

He reaches down to the folder and with sharp glances at her, he turns over sheet after sheet of neatly-spaced photographs, faces she can half-convince herself she's seen walking the corridors of the Institute.

"All of these people are a danger. They could be anywhere, they could be doing anything, within government departments, communications companies, driving fucking taxis, all of them reporting back into the Institute. This is bigger than him. Far bigger. But he is within the Brotherhood. He is a direct threat to us. And I cannot let that continue. The evidence is right in front of you and if you would wilfully ignore it through some... misplaced loyalty you are as much of a threat as he is."

But she's not listening to him any more. She's staring down at the sheet on which he has left the folder open. Like all the others, it has spaces for six photographs, arranged down the left-hand side of the page. But on this page, only five of the spaces are filled, one of them left blank. Beside that empty white space lie three lines of text that she has to read several times, her heart pounding faster and faster until it feels like it's about to burst out of her chest. Even then she can hardly make sense of them.

 _Nora Simpson_  
_location unknown_  
_operative despatched_


	19. Chapter 19

Hancock yawns, an action that's taken by Duncan as an invitation to stick his fingers in his mouth.

"C'mon, kiddo," he says, moving his head away. "That's just weird. You gotta learn to respect people's personal space."

But the kid just giggles and keeps on trying, respect for personal space being something that probably comes a few years after speech, let alone walking. So Hancock is just pretending to chew on those fingers to start teaching him the lesson when the doorbell rings. It's just a short burst, the kind that could easily be ignored when you're sat on the floor with an infant shrieking in your face, but he doesn't get away with it that easily.

"Can you get that?" asks Mac, his voice floating in from the kitchen. "I'm up to my elbows."

"In what?" asks Hancock.

"What?" says Mac. "Can't hear you over the faucet."

Duncan burbles and mashes his palm against Hancock's chest.

"You are so right," says Hancock, "I never do want the answer to that question, do I? Too smart for your own good."

Duncan beams back.

It's not easy to manage all the locks right-handed when you're left-handed and that arm's holding a kid who seems to be getting heavier by the day but he finally manages to pull open the door. Then he has to stand there for a moment, blinking in the light, before it quite sinks in what he's looking at.

"Oh," he says. "It's you."

Danse is standing on the doorstep wearing one of the most hangdog expressions Hancock's ever seen, and that's saying something considering the people he's been in contact with during his lifetime. The man's got something in his hands, rolled up tight, and he's clutching onto it like it's life.

But there's no Grace beside him or behind him and that makes a little knot of cold form up in the bottom of Hancock's stomach.

"What's goin' on?" he asks. "Where's Grace? Somethin' happen?"

The big guy just looks away, looks around, looks real nervous in fact and that doesn't make Hancock feel any more comfortable.

"You better come in," says Hancock, moving aside.

Danse steps on by and comes to a halt in the middle of the room. His shoulders are rounded, his arms hanging loose by his side, that... whatever it is still clutched tight in his hand. He still doesn't say anything, though, doesn't even really seem to look around the room like a normal person does when they go somewhere new. _Nice floor, wow that TV is huge, is that a lava lamp? Really? In this day and age?_ et cetera.

"C'mon, man," says Hancock. "You're freakin' me out. Say something. Somethin' happen to Grace?"

"Grace is fine," he says. "It's... me. I need your help."

_Why in the hell would you come to me for help?_

"Help?" says Hancock, somehow managing to suppress the words that came before that.

"I've got nowhere else to go," he replies.

Hancock thinks that's an odd thing to say for someone employed by the Brotherhood, but before he can react he's distracted by Duncan. The boy had gone real quiet when he'd spotted Danse and now he's heard the man talking, he's buried his nose into Hancock's shoulder and started making tiny snuffling noises which is never a good sign.

Even Danse notices and looks down at the kid, a look of concern on his face. "My apologies," he says, his voice deep and clear and loud and probably not helping Duncan feel better. "I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"S'alright," says Hancock, resting a soothing hand on Duncan's back. "He just don't like strangers. Specially not guys in suits. You know how it is. So what's goin' on?"

"I just need... somewhere to stay," he says. "For a little while. Until..."

_You need **what**?_

But again before he can speak, Duncan starts to make louder whimpering noises that are usually the early signs of a good old shouting session. Not only that, but Mac comes into the room, drying his hands on a towel.

"What's going on?" he asks. "Who's this?"

"This is Grace's, uh... friend," says Hancock, and there's a notable exhalation of breath comes from the guy at the word that tells him something's happened on that front.

_What have you done now, Gracie?_

Duncan reaches out a chubby arm toward Mac, face screwed up into a pout, and Hancock takes the opportunity to hand him over before he does start any of that shouting.

Mac's voice is quiet but the coldness in it is unmistakeable. "This that Brotherhood assh... guy? What does he want?"

Hancock doesn't see much reason to hide it. "Somewhere to stay."

Mac's looking over Hancock's shoulder as he takes Duncan back, the kid reaching out and clinging to him, remembering that he'd just been having a bit of a whine and starting it up again.

"Well he's not staying here," says Mac.

"Too damn right he ain't," he replies. "But somethin's wrong and I intend to find out what."

"Yeah, well," says Mac. "He's a lawyer. Don't hold out any hope for much truth."

"He ain't a lawyer," says Hancock, realising that he's probably thinking of the other Brotherhood asshole of Grace's, uh, acquaintance, but Mac's already snorting dismissively and heading out back with Duncan and that leaves Hancock with this particular version who's still stood in the middle of the room with the blank stare of a man who's lost in his thoughts and might not find his way back.

Now... it's not often that someone you barely know drops onto your doorstep begging for help. And maybe a guy like this should be able to look after himself, what with all the resources available to him. Go get a hotel, man, you can give a fake name, and if you got no money you can just skip out before you pay the bill. But there's enough of a connection between this man-mountain and the bare slip of a girl called Nora he'd met twelve years before to make him think, no, _know_ that he should be helping.

"C'mon," says Hancock, reaching out for his boots. "I know a place you can hole up for a while."

  
As they head down the street Danse looks just as uncomfortable as before, his head snapping around fast, eyes on stalks, paranoid as anything. But he has long old legs and a fast pace of walking and Hancock feels like he has to move his feet twice as fast to keep up with the guy, even though he's the one supposed to be leading the way.

They arrive at the Third Rail just a few moments later and as he heads down the steps it occurs to him - a little late - that probably taking the back route that leads in off the alley might be a more sensible idea if the guy's trying to avoid attention. But it's early yet so Ham's not on duty, and in the bar nobody's head turns as they enter, so that all seems good.

"Head on over there," he says, pointing to the far door. "Up the stairs, right to the top. I'll be there in a minute."

Danse walks off with only a slight unsure glance back, automatically ducking his head under the doorframe even though he has plenty of clearance. Man that tall probably does get himself into trouble every so often, thinks Hancock, as he heads over to the bar.

"Charlie," he says. "You ain't seen me, okay?"

Charlie eyes him suspiciously, but gives a slight nod.

"And there's definitely nobody gonna be stayin' upstairs for the next little while."

The bartender raises his eyebrow and continues wiping the bar. "Won't be needing any milk or bread delivered up there then."

"Nope," says Hancock, with a grin. "And definitely no coffee, I know he likes that. Wait. I mean, nobody likes that."

"Huh," says Charlie, in his characteristically loquacious style.

"If there should happen to be any trouble," continues Hancock, quietly, "You let me know rightaway. Before diallin' any three-digit numbers. Oh, and chuck me a bottle of that scotch, too, will ya?"

Charlie nods again, then leans down and pulls out a mostly-full bottle of scotch from under the bar, the secret stash for special occasions. Might not be exactly that special of an occasion but there's a story to be dragged out and Hancock's never met a person whose tongue wasn't somewhat loosened by a good bottle of whiskey.

He takes the proffered bottle and touches a couple of fingers to his forehead, heading up the stairs to unlock the apartment. It's a long time since he's been up there so it takes a while of fumbling through keys, the sound of them echoing loudly down and up the bare stairwell before he finds the right one and the door swings open with a creak.

Inside, the place is somehow even smaller than he remembered. The so-called 'function room' was tiny to start with, and it never really should have been made into an apartment at all even apart from the building regulations but it was just one of those things that happened, bits of furniture being dragged up the stairs piece by piece, scavenged furnishings accepted from wherever.

Most of the floorspace is taken up by a low coffee table, a chunk of folded cardboard still wedged under one leg to stop it rocking. Next to it are a battered old armchair and a threadbare couch, the right armrest more trashed than the other from where Mac'd always lain with his boots propped up on it, bad-mannered individual that he is. The bright blue curtain pulled over the alcove in which the bed is squashed clashes with the red carpet but when you just need a bit of cloth for privacy you take what's offered without worrying about the aesthetics.

"Mac used to live up here," says Hancock, by way of conversation. "Til he got custody of Duncan and moved in with me. This is no place for a kid, after all." He brushes dust from the windowsill and inspects a patch of wall blackened by mold or mildew or some such. "No place for an adult, neither, but a roof's a roof."

At the far end of the room is what passes for a kitchen, all two cupboards and three feet of wooden worksurface that isn't basin. He drags open one of the cupboards and gets out a couple of glasses, a pair of mismatched tumblers that probably hadn't even been pinched from the bar downstairs.

"So," he says, twisting open the scotch and pouring out a couple of shots. "What's the deal?"

Danse has sat heavily on the couch, it creaking under his weight. He props his elbows on his knees and buries his head in his hands.

"Ridiculous as it sounds," he says, muffled, "I have a chip in my head. Recording or replacing or interfering with my memories."

For a moment Hancock is genuinely shocked, then he thinks back to a conversation down in the bar just a few weeks before, the look of disgust on Grace's face when she told him about some shit in Nate's head and it gets a bit less surprising. Also seems to him that she'll probably be glad she dropped her pants for the other asshole if this one's bein' recorded too.

"Fuck," he says, half-heartedly.

"You know about any of this?" asks Danse, looking up from his hands.

"I heard a thing or two," he says, after a few moments thinking about how to phrase it. "Thought it was a myth, though. You sure about this?"

"Yes," says Danse. His voice is hard but his expression is more confused than angry. He's already dropped the thing he had in his hand on the table and it's a bit more obvious now that it's a folder, the cover of it still creased and curled up and not quite returning to lie flat on the sheets of paper inside. "Everyone in this folder has one," he says, and he pulls it open to point at a photograph in a sheet of photographs.

Hancock leans in and he's just preparing to say _maybe_ _it's just a lookalike?_ but it's definitely Danse. He has the exact same scars through his eyebrow and under his eye, though it looks like he's had his nose broken for him a few times since then. A few minor misdemeanors next to his name and three words that even though he doesn't quite believe they mean what he thinks they mean, still send a chill down his spine.

_Recommend full wipe._

"I just don't understand," says Danse. "This is five years ago, maybe six. But I'd never even visited the Commonwealth before this year." He looks around a little vacantly, seeming to see his scotch for the first time. He knocks back the shot in a single gulp, wincing as he does.

Hancock refills, trying not to wince at the waste of good liquor.

"I grew up in the Capital," continues Danse. "I know I did. It's all so clear, the street I grew up on, my friends, everything. Except..."

"Except what?"

Danse just shakes his head and lets out a sigh, and it's a few moments before he speaks again. "I've always felt like I don't belong, as though something were different about me."

Hancock snorts. "No," he says, wryly. "That's just perfectly normal paranoia, everyone in the universe gets that."

But it doesn't seem like Danse has read that book cos he frowns and rubs his hand over his mouth. "I don't know why I'm telling you this," he says.

"It's alright," says Hancock. "Happens a lot. People like to unburden themselves on me. Never quite sure why, I'm a terrible listener and an asshole to boot."

But it seems like Danse is just as bad a listener, cos he's sitting back in his seat and resting the glass on his knee, moving straight into the next thought. "I'm a criminal," he says. "A common criminal."

"Not necessarily," says Hancock. "You know, there was some trouble back in the day, with the local police. People were gettin' picked up on all sorts of charges that were inflated or exaggerated or straight-up invented. They instigated these, uh, 're-education' programs then put out propaganda about it cuttin' down reoffendin' rates."

Oh.

Oh, _shit_.

Hancock whistles through his teeth at the realization. "Wow," he says. "Military and police were in on it. Fuck." He flips through the folder, marvelling at all the names. "Shit, man, this is dynamite, you shown it to anyone? I know a reporter would kill to get her hands on evidence like this."

Danse frowns and it doesn't take an Institute scientist to work out why he wouldn't want to do that.

_I give this to them, I give myself to them._

It goes on like that for another hour or so, Danse having a sudden thought, Hancock slowly realising just how deep the whole shitty thing goes. He tries to help the man through it but there's not much he can do when he finally falls entirely silent and non-communicative.

"I oughta get back," he says, shifting on his seat. "You gonna be okay if I leave you here?"

Danse ignores him, staring into his glass.

"You want me to tell Grace you're here?" asks Hancock.

"No," says Danse, suddenly animated, angry even. "Absolutely not."

There's a look on his face that's somewhere between pained and angry and for the second time Hancock gets the feeling something's happened between them, something very not good.

_You know, if you like him..._

_I don't._

"You sure about that?" he asks.

"Yes," insists Danse. "Do not tell her."

"Why not?" asks Hancock. "Look, I don't know what's happened between you but..."

"I don't know who she is any more," interrupts Danse, grabbing the bottle for himself this time.

"Yeah you do," says Hancock. "She's Grace."

Danse shakes his head. "She's not. She never has been."

Oh, thinks Hancock. Nora. He'd barged on into the Third Rail and thrown that name at her. Landed like a bomb, caused a full-on panic attack like he hadn't seen her go through for years. He doesn't know how the hell he found out about it but he doesn't much care.

"Now come on," he replies. "Thats not fair. Just cos you just found somethin' out about her past don't mean she changed in the present. Grace is Grace. End of."

"What happened?" asked Danse. "Why did she do it?"

Hancock's already shaking his head. "Oh no," he says. "No way. That ain't my story to tell. If she ain't ready to tell you then that's just the way it has to be."

"I appreciate that," says Danse. "But I need to know. I need to know she hasn't been with them all along."

"'With them'?" repeats Hancock. "With who? What are you talkin' about?"

"The Institute."

Hancock finds himself about to laugh but realises that Danse isn't joking. His face is deadly serious, his tone doubly so and he almost forgets to speak at all he's so surprised.

"Fuck no," he says, eventually. "Holy shit, Danse, do you really think that? Of Grace? After what they've done to her?"

Danse looks at him, brow furrowed. "No," he says. "At least... I don't want to."

"So don't."

"Is it that easy?" he asks. "I should... just tell myself not to think it?"

Hancock doesn't quite know how to reply to that, but Danse goes on before he can gather his thoughts.

"Do you trust her?" he asks.

"With my life," says Hancock, and silently he adds a few more words.

_Already did. And she came through._

But that's a story he's certainly not ready to share with a stranger, even though Danse falls quiet like he's waiting for it. And it's starting to get dark outside and Hancock knows Mac worries so he eases the apartment key from his keychain and tosses it over onto the table.

"Here," he says. "Stay here as long as you need, and you talk to Charlie if you need anything."

Danse doesn't even look up as he leaves, and Hancock wonders if maybe it might not be too sensible to leave a man in that state in charge of a bottle of scotch, let alone a good bottle, but maybe he'll pass out before he does himself any serious damage.

He walks down the stairs, slower than usual, thinking hard as he goes. He could just ignore him, call her right up, tell her to fetch him. But it doesn't seem like that's something either of them want.

Besides. Fate brought her to him when he needed her. Maybe it'd do the same for Danse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first person to identify the book Danse hasn't read gets a drabble of their choice. send me [an ask](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/contact) and a general theme. 8)


	20. Chapter 20

The page in front of her shimmers. The name drifts in and out of focus. Grace blinks, hard, wishing it away, wishing everything away. But when she forces her eyes to comply again it's still there, stark black lettering on bright white paper.

_Nora Simpson._

Her breath catches in her throat and her heart continues to pound in her ears as she thinks back to those days. The arrest, the interviews, the accusing looks, the fucking arguments. Then a letter, a logo on the envelope that didn't match any of the others but ended up in the trash before... before _she_ could see it. Just like the rest.

And then... the night in the alley...

_Operative despatched._

_Fuck. He was an operative. All this... all this was because of the Institute._

A slight and too-familiar creak comes from Arthur's chair, reminding her of his presence as if she could really forget it for long. She closes the folder, quickly pushing it away from her, and looks up to see his face twisted in a sneer.

"You truly expect me to believe you didn't know?" he asks, his voice as harsh and mocking as his expression. "You, with your privileged position in the Institute? You, with your intimate knowledge of the man himself?"

His hand rests on the surface of the desk, and though the angle is wrong she can't help but think back to the times she looked down to see them either side of her, his lips on her neck, his body pressed hard against hers. And this is what he says, this is what he thinks?

_He hates you, Grace. Didn't you know? Wasn't that the point? To prove that you could have him anyway? You're invincible. You're indestructible._

_Aren't you?_

And she's not sure if it's her imagination or the same haze of fear in front of her eyes that makes his fingers seem to tremble, but she doesn't much care because her hands really are shaking. But not with fear; that's fading away, replaced by a rage that turns her stomach upside down and sends fire through her veins.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she asks, teeth gritted, shoulders taut and tense, though she knows perfectly well from the expression on his face.

He says nothing, just continues to stare, his frown deepening. It's too much. She reaches down beside her for her bag, still-shaking fingers fumbling to catch hold of the handles. She should just leave, she should get out, she has to _think_ and she can't do that with him glaring at her, eyes filled with unspoken accusations.

She stands back from the desk, not wanting to approach it, not wanting to be anywhere near it.

"I wouldn't do that," she says, her voice hoarse. "Not to you, not to anyone. But I guess you've already made up your mind. So fine. I'm a cheat as well as everything else. I don't know how you managed to fuck me in the first place."

Even before she's finished speaking the fire is burning out and she knows she has to leave to get _out_ get _away_ from piercing eyes that she can feel burning into her back as she turns away. Her heels scuff on the carpet, almost catching in the pile, and it's a relief when they start to sound out as normal on the hard flooring of the hallway. The elevator doors slide open and she has time to step inside, to press the button for the first floor before his heavier tread sounds on that same surface. She turns to see him silhouetted against the door of his office, expression hidden in shadows.

She closes her eyes to blot him out and stabs at the button again, praying that he won't stop her, that the doors won't spring back open. But they don't. The doors slide shut and stay that way, and all that reaches her through the closing gap is a single word.

_Grace._

As the elevator starts to move, she presses her hands against her face, her breath coming harsh and ragged. Numbers on the display panel slowly tick down, and as they do she takes a deep breath, checks herself in the mirrored walls, and tries to pull herself together.

_What if he calls down? If he doesn't want you to leave the building, you won't. He's told you that before. Don't you remember anything?_

She lifts her chin and concentrates on bringing a semblance of calm to her face, an expression that to a single glance will surely reveal itself as fake and insincere as it is. And when the doors slide back open her hands are still shaking and she feels an almost-irrepressible urge to break into a run just in case he does order for her to be stopped. But she doesn't, he doesn't, and she makes it out into the gathering dusk with only one thought on her mind.

_John. I need to see John. He'll tell me. He'll tell me if I changed, if they got me, if everything I am is a lie. He was there, he was there for me the whole time. He'll know._

_He has to._

Out in the street she's momentarily confused, night having fallen faster than she expected. She looks wildly from side to side, dazzled by headlights every way she turns. A bus draws to a halt right in front of her, brakes hissing loudly, kicking up dust from the gutter. Inside the vehicle a face turns to look down at her, eyes sharp and curious.

_Who's behind them?_  
_Is there someone behind yours?_  
_No. I didn't go. They didn't get me. They **didn't**._

Grace turns and starts to walk. But the traffic is thick, brakes continue to hiss and squeal and the bus is slowed to match her pace.

So are the eyes.

She draws to a halt and looks up to meet them. As she does they look away, disinterested, feigning disinterest. Then the congestion ahead of the bus clears and it pulls away, accelerating into the night, taking the eyes with it.

She shakes her head, tries to gather her thoughts. She can't pull out her phone for fear of what she'll see on it. But there's no need, not really. It's Thursday, so she already knows where John is. It's his favorite night at the Rail.

  
Inside the bar a dozen shouted conversations are barely audible over the pounding of music Grace can't even identify it's so loud. She makes her way through the crowd, using elbows and shoulders and anything necessary to get where she needs to go, to the booth over in the corner with cushions stolen from everywhere else. But when she makes it through, she recognizes nobody sat there and five pairs of eyes glare up at her, bright and curious.

She backs away, crashing into a solid figure. Her elbow is grabbed by a meaty hand and she spins around and stares up at the owner of it.

"Watch where you're going, you little bitch," he says, glaring back. He's all heavy eyebrows and short-shorn hair, stubble on his cheeks thicker than that on his head. He's twice her size and the stink of beer on his breath may make him more likely to swing out but she knows for a fact she'll be faster than him.

"You take that hand off me if you want to keep it," she hisses.

"Jesus," he says, letting go. "What the fuck is your problem?"

Beside her, her hands twitch into fists, but she doesn't have time for this, she doesn't have _time_. So she bites back the retort and makes for the bar. Charlie sees her and raises his eyebrows. "What can I get for ya?" he says.

"Come on, y'bastard, I was here first," complains a redhead with a strong Irish accent.

"Where is he?" asks Grace.

Charlie blinks. "Dunno who you're talkin' about."

"Don't fuck me around, Charlie," she says. "Not now. Where is he?"

"Not a clue," he says, but his eyes flick upwards and that can only mean one place.

"Yeah, well, thanks for nothing," she says, with the slightest nod of gratitude.

Without another word he turns away and deals with the redhead, who's already leaning well over the bar to shout her order at him.

Grace turns away and moves through the crowd again, this time toward the back door. After the bar, the stairwell is quiet and cool and bright, so bright she has to close her eyes until they adjust. Her feet echo on the steps, a hollow sound that echoes up through the open space. The sound of the bar fades away until all that remains is a low, deep thump. The harsh fluorescent light at the top of the stairwell flickers every few seconds, emitting a high-pitched buzz and a ticking that sounds for all the world like a clock.

She presses the buzzer and waits, counting the ticks. Twenty-five of them pass with no reply. She raps on the door with her knuckles, but there's no reply to that, either. She leans in to listen for sounds inside but the buzzing and the ticking and her own thumping heart make it hard to identify any other sounds. She takes a breath and turns the handle, but it doesn't budge, even when she rattles it.

This time she does hear something inside. A shuffling. A heavy thump.

She bashes her fist against the door, anger replacing her mounting sense of unease. "Come on," she says. "Quit fucking around and let me in. It's me, Grace. Come on!"

It still doesn't open so she steps away from the door in frustration, scratching her fingertips into her hair. Then there's a click from the lock, and a dull scraping sound, and the door swings open to reveal a figure far larger than the one she was expecting.

"Danse?" she says, bewildered.

His face is haggard, and while he's as formally dressed as always, his collar is loosened and the tie along with it. Besides that, even from a few feet away she can smell the alcohol, see how he sways slightly on his feet as he tries to use the door to support himself. His eyes are so dark and brown and utterly unlike Nate's but even at a moment like this she can't help but wonder.

_Are you in there?_

He doesn't answer, of course he doesn't, he just stares back and she can't think of a single word to say.

"Did he send you?" he asks, eventually, his voice hoarse.

"Yes," she says. It's not entirely true but he lowers his eyes and steps back to let her in and that's a start.

He waits for her to pass and then closes the door with excessive care, but the lock rattles for longer than it should and it takes more than one attempt to get to the chain back in position. There's a bottle on the table that's nearly empty and Grace can guess how full it was when he started.

She sits on the couch, running her fingers over the arm of it, along strands splitting apart to reveal the green foam underneath, barely holding the two sides of the fabric together. Danse picks up the bottle and pours some into a glass, holding it out toward her. She takes it from him, their fingers just brushing against each other but he seems not to notice the touch. He takes his hand and rubs it over his face before dropping himself down onto the armchair, the slats inside it complaining against his weight.

Whisky isn't her favorite but by fuck does she need it right now. She drinks it in one, the fire of it mixing uneasily with the nausea in her stomach, and replaces the glass on the table, and when she does she sees it. The folder. It's battered and bent and torn but it doesn't take a genius to work out what's in it.

"Where did you get this?" she asks, drawing it toward her.

He looks at her and laughs, a low laugh, mirthless in its brevity. "From your friends," he says. "The ones who help people like... like me."

The Railroad. Deacon. He'd been trying to tell her something that very morning and she'd been too fucking impatient to listen to him. If she'd just listened, if she'd just paid attention she could have found this out before...

_And then what. Then what would you have done?_

She doesn't know so she flips through the sheets and finds there's one missing, the one with _that_ name on it. She frowns, shakes her head, tries to make sense of it all but she doesn't get time because Danse is pouring them both another drink.

"What... what are your orders?" he asks, bringing the glass to his lips. He grimaces at the smell of it, and for a moment seems about to replace it on the table before changing his mind and tipping it into his mouth.

"He wants me to take you back to the Prydwen," she says.

Danse nods, slowly. "I'll come with you," he says. "It's only right. This is... this is a bad idea. I should have returned already."

"What?" she asks. "No! That's not... I'm not going to do that!"

"This... whatever it is is making it worse," he says, shaking his head. He presses his hand over his eyes.

"It's not your fault," she says. "It's not fair. You didn't ask for this. None of... none of you did."

"Regardless," he says. "I may have compromised the project. There's no way of knowing. I need to take responsibility..."

"For what, Danse?" she says, and her voice sounds shrill to her ears. And maybe it does to him, too, as his eyes open wide and his brow rises. She swallows carefully, and moderates her tone. "Responsibility for what? You didn't know. None of the people on that list know. None of them. You've done nothing wrong."

He seems about to protest but she doesn't want to hear it, not now. So she reaches out and gently touches his arm, just above his elbow, only to draw his attention. And it works, in a way; he falls silent and looks at her hand like he doesn't understand what it is.

"Wait for them," she says. "The Railroad. They'll find you. They'll look after you. I'd trust them with my life, you can too. Honestly."

He looks up at her, now, his eyes traveling over her face. They're slow, sure, and sluggish with alcohol, but they're so soft as they look at her that she can feel it in her stomach, in her chest, spreading now through her limbs, to the very hand that's still touching him. She wants him. She _needs_ him. She always has.

But she has to find John. She _has_ to.

"I should go," she says, and when he doesn't react to that she rises and heads for the door. From behind her there's another creak from the old armchair, and uncertain footsteps, and with her hand on the doorchain she turns to see him standing barely a few feet behind her. He's near enough that a single step would be enough to take her close enough to touch him, that he could do the same for her. But neither of them will. They never do.

"Go. It's okay," he says. "I'll... I'll wait for them."

At least one of those statements is a lie.

_Honey. It's okay. It's gonna be okay._

Her hand falls from the chain.

_You need to leave. Now._

"No," she says. "I'm not going anywhere."

Danse blinks, twice, brow furrowed. They stand, eyes locked, just as they had when she arrived, so close and yet so far away. Before she can realise what she's doing or persuade herself not to, she reaches out again, but this time he reaches out to her too, taking her hand and drawing her close, wrapping his arms around her shoulders even as she folds her own around his back. There's a gentle pressure on top of her head, accompanied by warm breath and muttered words of which she can't quite make sense except for one, one that makes her feel better than any he could say.

_Grace._

They stand like that for a little while, until the heat and the closeness is too much for her to bear and she pulls away. He makes as if to kiss her and though she wants nothing more than to feel those lips on hers she leans away from it.

"Not now," she says. "You need to sleep this off. We both do."

His eyes close, briefly, then he nods and lets her lead him over to the bed. As she pulls back the curtain, he sits heavily on the edge of it, his eyes almost rolling into his head with alcohol and exhaustion. He makes no move to undress himself so she unbuttons his jacket, pulls it over his shoulders, trying not to let her hands linger too long as she does so. She hooks her fingers into the knot of his tie, loosening it further, drawing it from around his neck with a silken sound that she's thought about too many times before.

_Not now._

He kicks off his own shoes, and rolls himself onto the bed, on top of the sheets but she knows she won't be able to move him so she doesn't even try. She hesitates for a moment before pulling off her own shoes and oddly nervous, climbs in to lie beside him.

"Grace?" he asks.

"I'm here," she says, and rests her hand on his shoulder. His hand closes around hers and holds it tight.

"Don't leave me," he says, his voice low and quiet.

"I won't," she says. "Not this time."


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: this chapter produced during NaNoWrimo '16. quality not assured. :D

Danse wakes on his side, his neck and back aching, his arm pinned beneath him and almost entirely numb. He stretches it out, curses quietly as sensation returns to it, bringing pain and relief at the same time. It's only as he does so, rolling the wrist and wincing at the protestation of his arm's crushed nerves that he realizes that he's not where he expected to be. The walls are too close, all around, the ceiling low above. It feels more like being in a storage container than the airy, blank atmosphere of the Prydwen, or even the quiet homeliness of his room at Grace's house.

He stops and corrects himself. _The_ room. Not his.

He casts his mind back to the night before, trying to remember where he was, how he'd even got there. It takes a moment for even the haziest of memories to come back, of shot after shot of whisky, intended to... to what? To make him forget. But it didn't do the job because what he'd been so keen to forget floods back in a tide of regret, fear and discomfort, his stomach lurching as much for that as the sickly after-effects of the alcohol.

He lifts his hand to his forehead, covering his eyes, just becoming aware of the dull throb in the center of his skull, and while it's not strong now he can already tell that he'll suffer later. Stupid. So stupid. As if alcohol could solve a problem like this.

As if anything can solve it.

He distracts himself by rolling his wrist again, shifting the pillow under his head. All he can do now is wait. It pains him to think that he has to rely on this shady operation of dark glasses and insincere smiles, this agency of troublemakers who might still turn out to be working with the Institute instead of against them. But he has little choice. His only other option is to return to the Brotherhood.

Perhaps that would be for the best.

The faint buzz of the waking city begins to grow louder, with the sound of engines rising up from the street below, tapping footsteps from the sidewalk, and a bird nearby that sings its high-pitched and repetitive song to the dawn. Then he freezes because there's something else. Closer. Light, barely audible above the background sounds of the street, but there all the same and unmistakeable. Breathing.

_Grace._

She's still here?

He rolls onto his back and turns his head to look at her. His movement makes her stir but it doesn't seem to wake her; she just takes in a breath and lets out a sigh, long and slow, her face just turning slightly toward him. All he can do is stare at her. She came for him. She _stayed_ for him. He doesn't know why, he doesn't remember, but he doesn't much care if he gets to see her like this.

Light streams into the room through the curtainless window, a warm pink glow that shines over her, gleaming softly in her hair and over her face. By comparison the rest of the room is colorless, gray, empty, just as it always is when she's nearby. She's lying on her back, her knees bent and pointing toward him, her skirt rumpled and creased and rising up over her knees. One hand is slung over her stomach, rising and falling with every breath, the other burrowed under her pillow.

She shifts again, lets out another sigh, but this time her eyes flicker open. Her brow creases into a frown of confusion and it's a long moment before she smiles, a warm smile that reaches her eyes.

"Hey," she says, her voice low and husky, fresh from sleep.

"You're still here?" he asks.

"Of course I am," she says.

He laughs at that because there's no _of course_ about it, and he almost asks the questions _why would you stay, it doesn't make any sense, you should have left, I would have left_. But before he can she reaches out, strokes his cheek, a delicate touch.

"I'm with you now," she says. "I'm here. And I'll protect you. Against all of them."

And as much as he's ashamed by the state he was in, that he _is_ in, that the tables can have turned so thoroughly that she can even make that statement, she leans in toward him, her lips slightly parted, and he decides to put aside his reservations for once. As her lips meet his, his fingertips make contact with her cheek, and he strokes them around the back of her neck, pulling her in to deepen the kiss. He's rewarded by another smile, one he feels more than sees, one that turns up the corners of her mouth even as she kisses him.

He moves his arm under her, draws her closer until she's leaning against him, her leg sliding over his, between his, her hand just skimming over his stomach. She pushes herself up over him, her elbow resting on the pillow next to his head, but with the change of position her hair falls forward over her face and his. She laughs when he reaches up to tuck it behind her ear for her. She closes her eyes as he trails his fingertips down her neck, then when he pushes aside the neck of her shirt and kisses the skin it reveals she sighs, her breath warm over his ear, and presses her cheek against the side of his head.

"I want you," she says, "I need you. Do you..."

She doesn't finish the question but that doesn't matter, he knows what she wants to ask. And he may be at a loss for words _yes, fucking yes, I've wanted you for so long and didn't dare to think you could ever want me back_ but that doesn't seem to matter either, her eyes finding the answer they were searching for in his. And he's sure the message is made clear by the lips he touches to every inch of skin revealed by clothing removed and tossed aside, and the hands that follow suit.

His own shirt is unbuttoned and pulled away, and a gentle hand pushes him back onto the pillows. He lies back, helpless, rapt, watching deft fingers unbuckling his belt, the friction of fabric on fabric then fabric on skin enough to send sparks flying through his every nerve. She takes his cock in her hand, just a gentle touch, a gentle pressure that's still enough to force a groan from his throat. She touches it to her tongue, with a wicked look in her eyes that's almost as hypnotic as the motion of her hand.

"Stop," he says, his voice hoarse and ragged even to his own ears. "Come here."

"Yes sir," she says, and comes to sit astride him. With a slight rock of her hips that elicits another unintentional groan from him, she leans forward on her elbows, sliding hands under his shoulders to press the full length of her body along his. Her slight weight barely registers but the heat of her skin brings sweat to his almost immediately.

"Are you sure about this?" she asks and the only thing he can think to say is the echo her favorite phrase.

_Hundred per cent._

Then she's on him, he's inside her, and her every movement sets him alight. She rises up on her knees so he can see her taking him in as well as feel it, slick and warm and so delicious he can almost taste it. And it's too much, even this soon; he digs his fingertips into her hips in an attempt to slow her, but instead of doing that it just intensifies the sensations; the long and slow and lazy glide only enhanced by the sight of her mouth now falling open, her teeth now catching her lip, the sound of her hums of satisfaction and soft words of appreciation.

He catches her hand as she strokes it over her own skin and pulls her in close. Wrapping his arms around her back, he can feel her catching breath and the shivers that travel through her. If he could, he thinks he could probably have this moment last forever with the coil of excitement wound tight enough to burst, coming closer every time she sighs or says his name.

Release comes in a moment of exquisite bliss, a fire that courses through his blood and nerves and hardly dies down after as she lies in his arms. Everything falls away but the two of them, all smiles and laughs and fast-beating hearts. The alcove is so warm and close and safe he thinks he could happily never leave it. Draw the curtain closed against the world, lie in the half-light, hands lazily stroking over each other's bodies, protected and safe from everything and everyone.

But reality begins to creep in with the still-rising sound of the street below, the bird that still twitters away outside the window, with the pain that still hums behind his eyes. Selfish, perhaps, to lie here revelling in such indulgences while the Institute are still out there. He shifts, uncomfortably, but she only holds him closer. He feels a sudden irrational urge to push her away _no, this isn't for me, this isn't right for you to be with me, you deserve better._ But she wouldn't accept that. He knows her well enough for that, at least. She knows what she wants and she gets it. That's what's been so hard, knowing that it isn't him. That seed of doubt threatens to return, but she lifts her eyes to his, claims another kiss and he thinks that he might just be able to believe that it is.

"You smell good," she says, pressing her face into his neck.

He laughs, because the smell of sweat and sex is thick in the air and he can't imagine he smells much better after a day of wandering the city and a night of sleeping fully-clothed. "I find that hard to believe."

"There's stale whisky, sure," she says, her voice muffled, her eyelashes brushing against his skin. "But pine, too. Maybe a bit of sage. It's nice. It's very... you. If I'd had to guess what you smell like... well. I've been to a candle shop, I know all about this stuff."

He barely thinks to ask her what she's talking about, but her voice is so low and calm, and his eyes are drifting closed, and next time he's truly aware of anything, the light coming in through the window is brighter and the sky behind it a deep cornflower blue. The bird still sings, the street still hums, but there's no presence in the bed beside him and if it weren't for the faint sound of clinking glass out beyond the curtain he might wonder if he'd dreamed the whole thing.

Her footsteps approach, soft over the carpet and she hands him a coffee. It's hot, too hot even to taste let alone to hold it properly.

"Sore head?" she asks, sitting beside him, tousling her fingers in his hair.

As if to remind him of his unwise decisions of the night before, pain flares at the sudden sound of her voice. He narrows his eyes at it, trying not to show his discomfort, but it's obviously enough for her to notice.

"Hold your nose over the mug," she says. "Steam it out. Works better with soup, but coffee's all we've got."

Faint tendrils of steam condense in the air as he does as he suggests, thinking back to the number of times he's seen her doing that very thing at her kitchen table, but the aroma is sharp and bitter and for him the heat seems to intensify the pain instead of relieving it.

"How do you feel?" she asks. "Apart from the head."

"Terrible," he says, but when he looks up there's a look in her eyes that says there was more to the question.

"Oh," he says, hurriedly. "Not about..."

"I know what you mean," she says. She smiles wryly and turns away, leaning forward to pick up her shirt from the floor. He reaches out a hand, strokes it down her back as a second apology, her shoulders tensing with a shiver as he does. As he runs his fingers over her skin he notices a faint scar that curls over her ribcage, curved, rounded, almost like a shark bite if he hadn't watched enough nature documentaries to know how unlikely that was to be the case. But before he can examine it any more closely, she's pulled the shirt over her head and is moving away.

He takes a gulp of the coffee, scalding as it is. Again, the pain flares in his head and the nausea roils in his stomach. But he fights it back as he does nearly every day and sets his focus on her instead. Sittng down on the couch and taking a sip from her own mug, she flips idly through the folder and he has to resist the urge to jump to his feet, to drag it away from her and stop her from seeing it again, that younger version of him that seems so like and unlike his present self. But he doesn't. He just looks for his own clothes and pulls them on. He's still buttoning up his shirt when she reaches out for his hand, and draws him down onto the couch next to her.

And that's when the question comes back to him. The bit he still doesn't know, who she is, who Nora is. He has to ask. He _has_ to.

Doesn't he?

Her knee rests gently against his, but her hand remains on her own thigh, clenching and unclenching, almost hypnotically rhythmic.

"I know you want to know about me," she says, anticipating his question. "About Nora. It's just... I haven't told anyone. Not even Nate. So it's difficult. I should have done it before, and maybe it's not the right time now, but... I think it's important. So you can... decide. What you want to do." She puts down her mug, pulling her leg away from his as she does so, but looking up at him from the corner of her eyes.

He nods. "Go on."

"I didn't just change the name," she says, eventually. "I changed me. Nora was... I was never Nora in the first place. Nora is what my mother wanted me to me, her good little girl she could put in pretty dresses and show off."

With a stab of guilt he thinks back to the angrily-worded letter.

_I didn't bring you up on my own to have you be this ungrateful._

"I grew up. I started to argue back. She doubled down, you know. Any way she could find to control me, she used. Curfews, money. Mostly money. I didn't have any of my own. I wasn't allowed. Even at college. Do you know what that's like? To be at college and not even be able to buy a damn pastry without asking for permission? But. Law school, right? Captive market for mentats. I made a friend, and..."

Incredulous, he interrupts. "You were pushing chems?"

"I wasn't pushing anything," she says, bitterly. "The market was there already. But I didn't know what I was doing and I got caught. It was as bad as you'd expect. And it made her worse, somehow. So I skipped classes, bribed my classmates to sign in for me, to invent study groups she would deem 'acceptable'. And I'd go home at night and pretend to be Nora, good quiet nice little Nora. But one afternoon I was jumped in alley on my way to a drop. Some guy in a black coat. I didn't see who he was, but I was... I was fucking high, alright. I fought back. I panicked. I ran. Hid out. I thought... I thought for a long time that I'd killed him. But I'm not so sure any more. I read every single newspaper every single day, looking for the report. But there was nothing, not even of an assault."

She pauses, presses her hands against her face, pushing the balls of her palms into her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says. "I've never really talked about this before."

"It's alright," he says. "Carry on."

She does, but he can't quite concentrate on her words, his own repetitive thoughts from the day before returning, revolving in his mind with the throbbing of his head.

_I'm a common criminal. You deserve better than me._

_But if you are too then maybe we deserve each other._

That brings him more comfort than it probably should. But he curses himself for it, for dismissing her so quickly. It's the Brotherhood way, certainly; once a criminal, always a criminal. It's why the background checks are so thorough, why it's so important that everything be above board.

It's why he can never go back.

He dismisses the thought before he lets it drag him back down, and focuses his attention back on her.

"Then one night I was in a bar," she's saying. "Not the Rail, nowhere I'd been before, I didn't want anyone to recognize me. I met a guy... I met Nate. He asked me my name. And I said Grace." She holds out her hands, palms up. "That's it. I've been Grace ever since."

Perhaps she's not who she says she is, not really. But neither is he. He doesn't know _who_ he is any more. Pain throbs in his head, strong now, almost enough to make his eyes water. He rubs them but it doesn't release the tension.

"Danse," she says, her hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he replies. "It's just a lot to take in. All of this is."

"I know," she says. She picks up the folder again but doesn't open it, just looks holds it up, and meets his eyes. "But at least now I know what I have to do. No more time-wasting. No more sneaking around. I have to shut them down."


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: this chapter was prepped as part of NaNoWriMo 2016. Quality not assured, even after the ~~hack job~~ editing process that's taken me the best part of two months XD

Her fingers curl around the edge of the basin, cool and smooth to the touch. She stares into it, at scratches and chips in the ceramic long-forgotten and yet strangely familiar. She shuts off the faucet and shakes the excess water from her hands. Danse is still sitting on the couch. He's leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, staring at nothing. He doesn't look up as she picks a threadbare towel from the coffee table and dries her hands. She sits down beside him, presses her knee against his even but there's still no response.

His collar is loose and his sleeves are rolled up, about as casual and relaxed as she's ever seen him. But his shoulders are obviously held tight, and though his wrists seem soft and loose, when she reaches out to touch her fingers to his hand it doesn't move at all. It's a long few seconds with her hand on his and a single breath held in her lungs, a moment that's just starting to tip toward awkward when she lets go of the both of them.

Only then, perhaps feeling her frustration in that unintentional sigh, or perhaps just a delayed reaction to her touch does he lift his hand to catch hers within it. He holds it, gently, then rubs his thumb over her palm, staring at it just as intently and vacantly as he had just been staring at the floor. And though his fingers are trembling and his grip uncertain, the warmth of his hand spreads through hers and brings a measure of comfort.

A breath beside her drags her attention away from his hand, from their hands, from fingers that are already softly intertwined. He opens his mouth as if to speak but it's only on the third attempt that he makes himself heard.

"Thank you," he says, slowly lifting his eyes to hers. "For telling me the truth. I... appreciate it."

And she looks into those eyes and accepts those thanks, while the rest of this so-called truth buzzes in her head. It's so loud she can hardly believe he can't hear it, and she's certain he'll see it on her face so she looks away, smooths down her skirt and rises to her feet. It's time to leave, after all. She's got a buzz from the caffeine, the taste of his lips on hers, and while her skin isn't decorated by bruises or scratches he's still _there_ , inside and out.

_Come on Grace. You seem sad. You're supposed to be fired up now, right?_

She ignores the thought and looks around for her bag, dragging it out from under the table and opening it up with hands she refuses to let tremble. Her fingers skim blindly over objects within, passing over her phone and closing instead over the cold metal of her compact, its engraved surface so familiar to the touch.

She draws it out and flips it open. The crack in the mirror splits whatever it shows in two; right now, it shows that the two sides of her mouth are as pale and bare as each other.

_She pulls out her lipstick and just as she removes the lid there's a shout. A laugh. And a blow to her shoulder that knocks a curse out of her. As she reaches out to balance herself the compact flies out of her grasp, skimming off into the middle of the corridor like an oversized cockroach._

_Though her heart is beating fast enough to break out of her chest altogether, the chems slow her reactions. Her hands don't even form into fists, she just doesn't think to do it. She just turns, and ends up staring because in the blue-tinged light the whites of his eyes are luminous, startlingly so. He speaks; an apology, perhaps? Then he ducks away, fetches the compact, presses it into her hand with his eyes fixed on hers._

_Then he asks her for her name and she says it out loud, for the first time._

_Grace._

She blinks the vision away and slicks the bloody stain over her lips, drawing a line as sharp as a blade against her skin. When she's done, she snaps it closed and looks back over her shoulder, over at Danse. He's standing, buttoning his sleeves, now shrugging his jacket on over broad shoulders. He pulls himself upright, standing stiff and straight.

"What's the plan?" he asks, his voice deep and commanding once more, his confidence returned, or at least a convincing pretense of it.

But she doesn't really have an answer for him, so she drops the compact back in her bag, and pulls out her phone to turn it on. She stares at the screen, bracing hersef for the visual assault; the mounting lists of numbers and names, fragments of angry, demanding messages. _Where are you. Where did you go? What are you doing?_ But none come. The screen remains blank but for the time.

Seven o'clock.

"The Railroad," she says, finalising the decision she'd made hours before. "They'll know what to do next."

  
The door to the bar is locked tight, but this time the key to the back entrance is where it always used to be, hidden on top of the mantel held down by a small ball of adhesive putty. She lets them out into the street, replacing the key and checking to make sure that the door locks shut behind them. The windows of the office block on the other side of the street seem dimpled and almost petrol-stained under the slanting light. Her eyes felt sore enough to begin with and now they're watering at the glare, even after she retrieves her sunglasses from her bag.

It is still early, so at least it's quiet enough to think. The noise of the street occasionally drops to a near-silence over which their footsteps sound out loudly; one pair of smartly-tapping heels, and the heavier but no less regular tread of Danse's rubber-soled shoes. It's comfortable, almost, walking side-by-side like this, barely inches apart. Almost as if they were just fetching an early-morning coffee before starting their day together.

But something doesn't feel right.

Waiting at a crosswalk she pulls out her phone but it's still silent, with no indication that anyone gives a shit where she is. It's twenty past seven now. She wonders briefly if there's something wrong with it, but the clock on the side of the old marketplace building says the same time as she steps out into the road toward it. Close and deafening, a horn sounds and brakes screech, and Danse's hand clamps around her elbow and drags her back onto the sidewalk. She crashes against him, her own hand grasping his collar to steady herself, her heart leaping into her throat as the driver curses at her and accelerates away.

It's only then that she notices that his tie is missing, the Brotherhood colors and logo that seemed to be so much a part of him. The top button of his shirt is undone, even, just parting enough to show a flash of skin. It's enough to distract her from an instinct that would usually have her dragging herself away from him, _I'm a fucking adult, I can cross the road on my own._ Instead, she finds herself thanking him, confused, her eyes flicking from his neck over to the sign that's only just flashing its green instructions.

_WALK._

Maybe that's it, she thinks. Maybe it is just the tie. But the sense of unease doesn't pass, not even as they cross the plaza in front of the hall, empty for now of the usual throngs of tourists and street performers that'll show up later in the day. Just a couple of construction workers in hi-vis jackets, emptying plastic cups of coffee into their mouths. A white-haired woman in long shorts and a bright purple vest, fumbling keys and a brown paper bag from one hand to the other as she unlocks the door to her shop.

Then a pair of girls in almost-matching outfits dawdle toward them, one staring backwards over her shoulder, the other talking and avidly tapping on her phone. And a man in a suit almost as tightly-buttoned as Danse's follows on almost the same trajectory, irritably checking his watch and glancing over his own shoulder before increasing his pace.

Her stomach lurches. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but they had both been looking directly toward the Railroad clinic, toward where that little red door was hidden away at the end of the row.

"Damn it," she says, trying to think of a good reason to stop, to take stock, to work out what the hell is going on. She only manages to pause and tap her foot on the ground as if she has a stone in her shoe, cursing herself for the lack of originality. But, invested now, she takes a couple more limping steps then stops dead. She balances on one foot, removing her shoe with one hand and shaking out the imaginary stone.

Danse doesn't notice at first but when he does, he turns around and stands right in front of her so she can't see a damn thing.

"Are you alright?" he asks, holding out his arm for her to steady herself.

"Yeah," she says. "Got something in my shoe."

In the brief moment of quiet, her hand resting on his arm, she's certain she hears or senses something above the hum of traffic from the street behind them. Something echoing around the buildings of the marketplace, something not right for this time of the morning.

"Danse," she says, replacing her shoe and lowering her foot to the ground. "Do you hear that?"

His brow furrows. "What?"

"I don't know," she says. "Something... coming from behind the hall. No, don't look. Just listen."

He frowns just for a moment before he gives an almost imperceptible shake of the head, still looking down toward her foot with concern that may well still be real. Then the street behind them quietens down, or perhaps a breath of wind brings the sound to her ears and it briefly becomes a voice before dispersing into the air once more. It's distorted, garbled, and she can't make out a single word of it. But when she looks up at him his eyes are wide.

"Some kind of announcement," he says. "I couldn't make it out. Not fixed audio equipment, though. A megaphone, perhaps."

She nods and wipes her hands against each other. Why a megaphone. Why the market place. Why _now_.

"Come on," she says. "Let's take a look."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," he says, following her anyway.

He's right because despite the early hour, a decent crowd has gathered on the corner of the market. There's even a press van parked on the cobbles blocking even more of the view, so Grace can barely make out any more than flashes of color between the gawpers and the line of grim-faced men and women keeping them out.

Even though she can't see what's happening, it's perfectly clear that the line is circling the Railroad clinic, and who's responsible for it. Her step falters, even before Danse confirms what she's just realised.

"Grace," he says, urgently. "It's the Brotherhood."

"I can see that," she says. "What the fuck are they doing here? Why now?"

"I don't know..."

Grace catches herself before she retorts, just. She drags her sunglasses from her face, and rubs her hand over her stinging eyes. As she's scanning the marketplace from the corner of her eye she spots a movement, just on the edge of her vision. A smudge of white, just disappearing into a narrow alleyway that leads away from the market.

"Over there," she says. "Did you see that?"

"No," he replies, but she's already heading toward it.

The alleyway is dark in comparison to the open plaza, but once her eyes adjust she sees him leaning against the wall and turning a cigarette lighter in his fingers. He glances between them, a single nod of the head acknowledging their presence.

"Keep a lookout," she says to Danse. He frowns but complies, posting himself just inside the entrance to the alleyway.

Close up, Deacon is about as agitated as she's ever seen him, scrubbing his hand over his head, eventually using that lighter on a cigarette that's tucked behind his ear. He sucks in the smoke like it's the first he's tasted in years, though she knows for a fact that's not true. His t-shirt is glowing blue in the low light, but even so she can see smudges of dust and dirt all over it.

"What's going on?" she asks.

"Your pals," he says. "The glorious Brotherhood. They swooped on in first thing. They already took Tom away and started boxing shit up. Carrington's refusing to leave but the cops have showed up now so I don't know how long that'll last."

"Deacon," she says. "Why? What do they even want?"

"Beats me."

The second-hand smoke hits her senses, exacerbating her cravings. She shakes her head, trying to ignore them. "How can they even do this, they're just a bunch of fucking lawyers."

"You tell me," he says, sharply, and he leaves just enough of a pause for her to understand his meaning.

For a moment, the only movement in the alleyway is the wisp of smoke rising from his cigarette.

"I don't know," she replies. "Why would I?"

He shrugs.

"You think that after everything I've done for you, I'd do _this_?"

He leaves just enough of a pause for her to feel compelled to speak, but doesn't let her. "No," he says. "I believe you. You're a good... you're a great agent, or operative or whatever. But you couldn't get something like this past me."

He takes another deep drag on his cigarette, flicking the rest of it away into the darkness, muttering as he does.

_Or maybe I'm just real invested in fooling myself._

Before she can react or reply he holds up his hand. In between his fingers is a recognizable shape. A thumbstick, just like the one he'd given her before.

"Here," he says. "This... this is our little pet project. Tom's been working on it since the last time, with the information you got out. You stick this in an Institute terminal? Boom. Data wiped. All of it."

She stares at it.

"Data?" she says, eventually. "What about the tech? It's a big building. There's a lot of machinery in there, underground servers. Not to mention all the people who know how it works."

He fixes her with stare, as much as he can with those glasses. "Yeah," he says. "We thought of that, too."

She takes the stick, rolls it in her hand. The logo on it is faded but distinct; Mass Fusion, power for the future. "Alright. Take this to the Institute, plug it in... profit?"

She can't see his eyes, but there's a twist to his mouth that says it's not exactly the whole story.

"Well," he says. "Complication number one is that it can't just go into any terminal. You know how that goes."

"Okay," she replies. "I got into Li's terminal before. I can probably find an equivalent."

He shakes his head. "Nah. No equivalent for this one. You gotta go to the top. Tom's gone over and over, there's no other way. It's gotta be the big cheese, only way to get onto that particular network with the access to the other network and that really _shiny_ thing down in the basement..."

"I don't know if I can do that," she says. "They don't trust me enough. Not now, not any more."

"I'm sure you can find a way," he says. "You have to. You know what's at stake."

The urgency in his voice should probably be motivating her, but instead it fills her with an agonising weariness that drags her limbs toward the ground. It's impossible, she thinks. How can she possibly walk in there, right up to the Director's terminal and use this. The last time she was there she'd been too distracted to even listen to him, and had let herself be drawn away to the argument with Maxson. There's no way he'd let her get that close now.

But it'll be even harder once he finds out about this mess. So she closes her fingers around the device and slides it into her pocket. She casts a glance over her shoulder. Danse is still a silhouette in the entrance to the alley, giving no indication that he can hear what's going on.

"Fine," she says to Deacon. "But you said complication one. There are more?"

"Yeah," he says. "About that. Don't get too comfy in the big man's chair. However you go about getting into it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"There's a power source in the basement. Mass Fusion prototype, apparently easy to hack for a hack like Tom. Introduce a few lines of code to the maintenance program and it kinda forgets to cool itself down. Agitator gets agitated, and, uh, boom."

She feels her mouth fall open and doesn't do a thing to stop it. "What? You want me to blow the place up?"

His mouth is still turned up into that smile, one so mirthless it barely deserves that definition. "We don't have a choice any more," he says. "It's that or this tech falls into Brotherhood hands. You want that? We don't even know what they're going to do with it. Oh no, wait. We do. They're going to fucking use it for themselves. And that, my friend, scares the shit out of me. The Institute? They're just batshit. But the Brotherhood have a purpose. And nobody but them knows what it is."


	23. Chapter 23

A crash comes from the hallway, echoing around the low ceilings of the Railroad's so-called headquarters. The sound multiplies until it feels as though the whole place is being brought to the ground around his ears and as if to prove it, a chunk of plaster falls from the wall beside him. It breaks into splinters on the concrete below, adding to a pile of off-white flakes that already lies there.

This place seems too crude, too rudimentary to be the base of an operation with the Institute at its back. Not only does the infrastructure seem to be crumbling but the furniture is mismatched, the sparse equipment aged and outdated. It's nothing like he'd expected.

Arthur brushes a few flecks of plaster dust from his sleeve.

"Is that really necessary?"

Doctor Carrington is still sitting by his desk, leaning back in his chair with folded arms and outstretched legs. Arthur has already learned not to read into that relaxed pose any indication of acceptance of the situation or willingness to cooperate.

"It might not have been necessary," he says, "if you had provided us with a key."

"I don't have one," replies Carrington. He spreads his hands, a gesture that might seem conciliatory were it not for the contemptuous expression on his face. "Perhaps if you hadn't charged in here impersonating police officers and dragging off my colleagues as if you actually had the authority to do so, there might still be someone here who did."

Arthur holds his gaze for a few moments before pulling back his cuff to check the time. 8:30. Two hours have already passed and he seems no closer to finding the answers he needs. His operatives don't appear to be having any more success; their voices in the hallway are hushed and too distorted by the acoustics of the place to be intelligible, but the irritation and impatience in them is unmistakable.

_This is wrong. This is all wrong. You've made a mistake._

"Do you even know what you're looking for?" asks Carrington.

"Of course I do," says Arthur. "And I will find it."

But he doesn't. And he's coming to the conclusion that he won't find anything at all. It was foolish of him to think it would be so simple to find a link to the Institute, just sitting out on a desk or filed neatly away in a cabinet. As if they would be so careless.

As if it were even true.

He curses himself. He'd been too hasty; acted before he had all the facts. He'd ordered the raid in the early hours of the morning but why? Nothing had changed. No new information had come to light. Just that odd, sick feeling in his stomach that had started the moment she'd left his office.

_She presses herself against the back of the elevator, fingers splayed over her eyes, blotting out the sight of him. He calls to her but she doesn't respond at all. The doors slide shut and though he knows he has a moment to reach out and prevent her from leaving he remains frozen to the spot._

_You were wrong._

But no; this is the time. This is the best opportunity to take out the Railroad. If anything, he'd waited too long. He'd allowed himself to be distracted by her, to let her run rings around him and for what? A few nights of intimacy.

If it could even be called that.

Carrington laughs dismissively. "Of course," he says. "Well, I'm completely convinced. I'm sure your paymasters have told you exactly what you'll find here. Tell me; have they shared with you what they plan to do with it?"

He's irritated by the term as much as the tone; _paymasters_. That's not how the Brotherhood works, and never has. The decision in the Capital had been clear and unanimous; prepare a case against the Institute and make it absolutely watertight. Give them no room for manoeuvre, no way to slither away or extricate their degenerate technology to use it elsewhere.

"That's none of your concern," he says.

"No, of course not," says the doctor. "I'm sure I couldn't possibly understand the complexities."

A light gust of street air passes into the room, laced with cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes. A door slams in the distance and footsteps shuffle across bare floors. Closer, Carrington shifts in his chair. He folds his arms again and fixes Arthur with a stare no less intense than before. "So. Where is she in all this?"

Arthur adjusts his sleeve again and avoids his eyes. "Who?"

"Adams," replies the doctor, his voice filled with disdain. "Who else? I thought she'd be at your shoulder at a moment like this. Or did she not want to look us in the eyes as she betrayed us?"

"This has nothing to do with her," says Arthur, stiffly. "I alone..."

"I sincerely doubt that," interrupts the doctor. "We should never have trusted her. I told them all along. I knew she'd lead one or other of you to our door. It was far too easy for her to insinuate herself into their ranks. And yours."

"Don't be ridiculous," says Arthur, turning away. This is a last-ditch attempt to confuse and obfuscate, to throw him off the scent. Of course they'd try to use her against him; anything to unsettle him, to shake his confidence in her.

_What confidence?_

"Tell me," says Carrington. "How does it feel to do the Institute's dirty work for them?"

"I'm doing no such thing," replies Arthur.

"Oh but you are," says Carrington. "This is exactly what they want. They hadn't dared take us on directly, not here in the middle of the city. I suppose they saw that a group of glory-seekers like yourselves would have no such sense of restraint."

"It's not about glory," he says.

"No," says Carrington, suddenly rising and leaning forward, resting his fists on the edge of the desk. "It is not. It is a most inglorious thing, in fact. You have no idea of the damage you've done today. To the Commonwealth, to the people who relied on this clinic, to _yourself_."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've shown your hand. And you're going to get called on it." He laughs, standing upright again, clasping his hands and shaking them almost as if in prayer. "Ha! My goodness, Maxson. You're more of an idiot than I thought. You are a child playing a game with adults."

He bites back the worst of the retort that springs to his tongue. "Age is hardly an indicator of intelligence," he says. "Or common sense. You proclaim to hate the Institute and yet you refuse to cooperate with us against them."

"Of course I do," replies Carrington. "Why would I want to help you? You're no better than they are."

Arthur stares at the doctor in disbelief. "I beg your pardon?"

"You strut around like you own the place, with your faceless operatives and your facade of legality. What's the difference? A few lab coats? You know they don't even bother to give their operatives names. I'm sure you disapprove but can you name any of the men stomping around in this building? Do you even know the one who drove you here this morning?"

Arthur narrows his eyes. He's always picked his allies carefully; he's seen trust betrayed one too many times, even without considering the name he carries like a concrete block around his neck. Sometimes, even that level of cautiousness hasn't been enough.

"I thought not," says Carrington.

"So that's it then," snaps Arthur. "You won't cooperate at all?"

The doctor's eyes glitter dangerously. "No," he replies. "You'll get nothing from me."

Leaving the doctor to his intransigence, he heads out into the hallway. Quinlan had previously been hovering in the hallway, not exactly directing operations but keeping a close eye on them; he's no longer present and neither is anyone else. The door is propped open with a fire extinguisher; the sun streams in, glaringly bright. It casts deep shadows all around, and reveals the texture of the concrete floor in sharp relief. Into it are scored parallel shallow gouges, as if a piece of heavy furniture or equipment had been dragged over it, something that certainly isn't in the building now.

He kneels, touches his fingers to one of the marks. The edges of it are fresh, not smoothed down by time, and a light gritty dust transfers onto his fingertips. Something has been removed from here, and recently. But what? Perhaps Quinlan would know. Outside, he asks after him. An operative nods in the direction of the street, indicating that he's waiting in the car. As he heads toward it, a dark-haired woman in a faded leather coat peels away from the crowd and approaches him.

"Piper Wright, Publick Occurrences," she says, tapping a press badge. "Got a comment for me?"

"No," he says. He turns away from her and heads toward the car. He wonders how long Quinlan has been waiting there for him, and if he had even thought to say anything before leaving.

"Sure about that?" asks the reporter, following alongside him. "I mean, you've just conducted an illegal raid on a charitable organization that do invaluable work rehabilitating at-risk veterans. People are going to want some answers."

"No comment," he says. More likely Quinlan had decided leaving Arthur to the fruitless conversation with the doctor was better etiquette than interrupting it.

The reporter's questions stop before he reaches the street. He doesn't look back to see where he left her; good enough that she's gone. His mind returns to the gouges in the floor and what might have caused them. Where had it gone and how recently? How much did the doctor know about it?

Did Grace know about it?

The car is idling at the side of the road close to where it had dropped him off. An operative standing next to it opens the door for him. He nods at them, tries to remember their name but he can't and as he looks at their face to try to remind himself of it they look away.

We're nothing like them, he thinks, as he swings himself onto the back seat. We're _not_.

His full weight is on the seat before he notices that his fellow passenger is not Quinlan. He's older by some margin; his hair brighter white, his face more heavily-lined. Arthur tries to spring from his seat but a heavy hand lands on his shoulder and pushes him back. He grabs onto the operative's jacket but his hand is slapped away and the door is slammed in his face. He reaches out for the handle of it but as he does, from within the glossy paneling comes the unmistakable sound of a lock mechanism engaging. Though he knows it's useless to do so, he rattles it loudly.

"Let me out of here," he says, his heart racing. "Right now."

His demand is met with silence and the car pulls away so he sits back. He carefully unclenches his fists and rests his hands on the seat beside his legs. Through the fabric, through the body of the vehicle he feels the hum of its engine, soft and low and steady.

So they're not going far, and they don't need to get there fast.

That calms him a little.

The old man holds himself stiffly with one hand resting on the door handle, the other pressed hard on the seat as if to prop himself upright. "I must apologize," he says. "I realize this is... somewhat improper."

The scene outside his window changes from the red-brick buildings of the financial district to dark-painted metal and the bright blue of river.

They are heading north.

"You're with the Institute," says Arthur.

A laugh turns into a cough, a dry hack that shakes his whole body. "I am the Director of it," he says, pressing his hand to his chest. His voice is soft, almost nauseatingly so as he continues. "On a rare excursion from the confines of my operation. It is not often that I take such liberties, but today seemed an... auspicious day to do so. Do not be concerned. No harm will come to you on this occasion."

Though the Director's tone is soft and calm, his stare is oddly cold. The threat is clear.

"I want to thank you, in fact," he continues, pausing briefly. "The Railroad has been something of a thorn in our side. We have tried to eliminate them in the past, several times. They always manage to salvage enough of their operation to build themselves back anew. Like a reptile that sacrifices its tail in order to escape a predator. Hm."

The Director sounds quite pleased with his comparison, alhough he looks away, tapping on the window-frame, a tense and impulsive action.

"But now," he says, "that appears to be in the past. As do they. And so I must thank you."

He appears to be as unconvinced of his assertion as Arthur is. But the implication is uncomfortably close to what the doctor had suggested just a few minutes before.

"I didn't do it for your benefit," he says, breaking his silence.

"Perhaps not. But it does benefit us, and greatly. Unfairly, perhaps. Our trade is somewhat unbalanced."

"Trade?" asks Arthur. "What are you talking about?"

"Li," replies the Director. "It was a shame to lose a mind like hers, of course. But in return for the Railroad..." His fingers still tap distractedly on the window-frame. "And, of course, Grace."

Just hearing her name brings a chill to his chest, particularly when spoken in in such soft and indulgent tones.

"She is rather wonderful, is she not?" he continues. "I knew she was special, right from the moment I saw her."

"And when was that?" retorts Arthur. "Before or after you killed her husband?"

The Director takes in a sharp breath. "That was... a regrettable incident. But I believe we've come to an agreement over that."

An agreement about it? Had he never seen her expression whenever she mentioned him? Her grief ran so deep even she couldn't hide it, as much as she tried to conceal it with anger. One thing was clear; nothing had mattered to her more than him, nothing had affected her more than the loss of him. She'd made it perfectly clear Arthur could never live up to his legacy and would be wasting his time to try.

So he hadn't.

"Regardless; her time with you is at an end. I'm sure you understand."

Arthur swallows the lump that rises into his throat. "That's her decision to make."

"Yes," he says. "It is."

The way he says it is so final, so decisive, as though that decision has already been made.

_It has. She left. You pushed her too far. This is your fault._

They travel in silence until they reach the CIT buildings that act as a facade for the Institute. Arthur is led inside, through a large atrium filled with too-green plants and too-red benches, and on through the corridors of the Institute. It's a circuitous route that's clearly designed to take in the most brightly-lit and bustling laboratories, the most advanced pieces of technology, the most complicated formulae scrawled on whiteboards.

This is exactly as he had imagined it, as the few pieces of evidence that they had managed to obtain had suggested. Bright, clean, and hugely sophisticated. Even the state-of-the-art systems in the Prydwen seem lumbering and crude by comparison. The Director himself even seems something of a retrograde figure to be in total control of such an advanced and apparently forward-thinking operation. He fumbles security cards, hesitates before tapping access codes, and inside the elevator he clutches the handrail tightly as if afraid of falling.

"Very impressive," says Arthur. "Am I supposed to be intimidated?"

"No," replies the Director with a wry chuckle. "That is... not my intention. I just wanted you to see what we are. What we have. Who we have."

Those last words seem emphasized but he moves on too quickly for Arthur to respond.

"I am not under any illusion that you will voluntarily reconsider your... mission. I doubt you have the authority, on your own." He glances over at Arthur. "But it is important to go into any situation with full knowledge of the facts. One must gather data and analyse it carefully, before choosing a course of action."

"That's the reason for this... tour?"

"Indeed. I wish merely to demonstrate that you will not be able to launch a raid, you will not be able to send in agents, you will get nothing more from us. This is your last chance, in fact. Choose your questions wisely. Please. Follow me."

The floors are covered in a soft linoleum that seems to drag on the soles of his shoes, to slow him down. His every sense urges caution. But he has little choice now, so deep within the Institute. He must proceed. He passes a series of doors, closed tight and giving no clues as to what lies inside. At the end of the corridor is another, identical to the others except that this one is slightly ajar.

The Director gestures for Arthur to go inside.

He hesitates, his breath coming fast and uneven. He feels almost as though he is being watched but when he glances over his shoulder the corridor is empty but for the Director.

Inside, the room is perfectly silent, perfectly still. A desk, a low couch, a shelf of books and equipment. A woman stands at the window, her hands clasped behind her back. Against the sunlight that streams in through the high windows it's hard to make out any details of her appearance or clothing.

It can't be her. Not standing here, in the Institute, looking down on the place as though she owns it.

Please don't let it be her.

"Ah," says the Director. "And here she is. Wonderful."

_Please_.


	24. Chapter 24

Grace takes a shallow breath and steadies herself. Just the sound of his voice makes her skin crawl, as if she weren't uncomfortable enough with the slick of nervous sweat clinging to her skin. Somehow today that soft voice sounds even worse, combining with the artificially chilled air of the Institute to a shiver down her spine, as though unwanted fingers are sliding down the back of her neck.

_And here she is. Wonderful._

She swallows back the nausea that has risen almost into her throat and summons a smile that feels as fake as the layers of color over it. Her lipstick is plastered so thick by now it feels dry, brittle, like a mask that could crack if she doesn't keep a tight control over her expression.

_Why do you wear that? You look beautiful without it._

_Because if they're looking at that, they're not really looking at me._

She turns to face him and almost loses the control as soon as she's gained it, the corners of her mouth falling as fast as her heart sinks through the floor. Because he's not alone, and the man standing next to him is the last person she expected or wanted to see. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever again.

_Arthur._

He wears an expression on his face that she's never seen before, a kind of wide-eyed wild-eyed stare. If she thought he were capable of the emotion she'd think he was dismayed or distressed, that perhaps he was feeling regret for the things he'd said and done.

It's too late for that now.

He averts his eyes, blinks the expression away and replaces it with his usual imperious glare. "Adams," he says, his voice hoarse and harsh.

"Maxson," she replies, hardly more sharply than she intends.

Shaun chuckles, a soft sound that does little to break the tension of the moment. But it does provide a distraction, not that she can feel much gratitude for it. Sunlight filters hazily in through the layers of glass that insulate the office from the outside world. In it, his eyes are bright and luminous, almost otherworldly. They're fixed on her, rapt, watching for a response. _Look who it is,_ they say. _Look who I've brought you. What are you going to do now? Who are you going to choose?_

A test of loyalty, while the thumbstick that contains his downfall sits quietly in the side of his computer, transmitting its instructions to the ranks of servers that lie on floors almost a mile below the ground.

Grace turns her attention back to Arthur. "What are you doing here?" she asks.

"I could ask the same of you."

"I asked first." She forces a lightness into her voice that doesn't want to be there. It's childish, perhaps, a level of debate more suited to a schoolyard than a situation such as this. But it buys time, and time is exactly what she needs right now.

On the Director's terminal, the Railroad-designed program is still ticking over, thin lines of text jerking their way up the screen, sometimes in a blur, sometimes pausing for agonizingly long moments. She's not sure what it's doing; Tom's code was far too dense and convoluted for her to have a hope of understanding it.

That wasn't her job, though. She just had to get it into the terminal, and guard it for long enough for the program to do its thing.

"Come now," says Shaun, with a benevolent smile. "Let's not argue. We have a great deal to discuss."

"I have nothing to discuss with you," says Arthur. "Or her. You've brought me here against my will and I demand that you allow me to leave."

"An understandable assessment of the situation," says Shaun. "But I do feel it is somewhat short-sighted of you. Please. Indulge me a little longer. Do sit down."

Grace feels a thrill of nerves as he gestures Arthur toward the seat, _her_ seat, on the other side of the desk. She half-expects him to refuse, to insist on standing stiffly or sit anywhere other than where he's been directed.

That's what she'd do.

But he does sit, settling himself into the seat and leaning back. He unbuttons his jacket, even, but his hands rest on the arms of the seat and his feet are placed carefully on the floor. He's poised, ready to leap up if necessary.

It's how he always sits.

It's how _she_ always sits.

Shaun walks toward her, brushing his fingertips over the surface of his desk as he rounds the corner; not quite leaning on it but perhaps looking for reassurance in its solidity. He seems steadier on his feet than usual, no hands reaching for sources of pain. But he will need to sit, he must need to sit, and her heart pounds in her ears as she envisions him spotting the thumbstick, ripping it out, with no idea of whether it's had long enough to run.

But instead he stops beside her.

"Please," he says. "Sit down, too. Take my seat. Make yourself comfortable."

The words are pronounced carefully, loaded in a way that she can't quite understand. She nods, allows him a brief smile, and turns away. When she sits she makes an effort not to match Arthur's posture, not that he's looking at her. He's studiously avoiding her, in fact, observing Shaun with careful, sharp eyes that seem to be memorizing or measuring him up.

_What do you see_ , she thinks. D _o you see a harmless old man or a dangerous one?_

Have you underestimated him, just as you did me?

Shaun stands in front of the window for a few moments. His feet are close together, his shoulders somewhat rounded; he seems small, almost, despite his height. He rubs his palms against each other in a curious repetitive motion, purses his lips and stares down into the atrium.

"We have reached a critical moment," he says. "With the elimination of the Railroad threat, and I must thank you again for your assistance in that matter, I am once again able to look to the future. However, it is a future in which I will not be taking part."

Silence.

"The fact of the matter is," he says, "that I am an old man. I don't know how much time I have left. And I have been under pressure for some time now to appoint a successor."

This time he doesn't break the silence that falls, allowing it to last for long enough that she feels compelled to speak.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she says, the skin on the back of her neck prickling. "Have you chosen one? A successor?"

"Yes," he says. "You."

Two pair of eyes stare at her, watching eagle-eyed for her response. A sudden, wild desire to laugh rises up inside her, only barely held back by concentrating on Arthur's furious expression.

Director of the Institute.

Her.

Almost as bizarre as a twenty-year-old being head of the Brotherhood.

"You're not going to accept this," says Arthur, incredulous.

"Is that a question or an order?"

He says no words in reply but his expression says it all; both.

"Grace," he says. "Please. After everything they've done to you, you can't... What about your husband?"

_What about him? He's gone._

_Or is he?_

"It's alright," she says, slowly, quietly. "I found him again. Isn't that right, Shaun?"

Arthur's eyes are wide, now lit themselves by the eerie, washed-out sunlight.

"Everything he thought, everything he did," she continues. "It's right here on this terminal. So am I. The last five years of my life, all on here."

She turns to Shaun. "Because you knew all along, didn't you. You knew who I was. I escaped your operative, but that was only by chance. You had every opportunity to send someone else, someone I couldn't have escaped. Why didn't you? Didn't you want me for your program?"

Shaun lets out a slow, shaky breath. "You're here now, aren't you?"

And now it makes sense. The disapproval of his staff, the glares from his senior colleagues. It was his little game, his experiment outside of the confines of the real science.

"I am here," she says. "You're right. Congratulations on such a successful experiment. I led you right to the Railroad. Right into the Brotherhood, too. Where else did you go with me?"

Shaun's gaze is level, his expression inscrutable. There might be a hint of shame behind his eyes but even if there were it wouldn't make her feel any better.

She smiles and stands, stroking her hands down her skirt before she straightens up, meeting his eyes on a level. "Did you enjoy watching me?"

Arthur shifts in his chair but she ignores him, continuing to address herself to Shaun. "Perhaps not as much as you thought," she says. "I personally find life is better experienced first-hand. When you can actually talk to the person you're with, and have them talk back. When you can feel them."

There's barely any sound in the room, not even of breathing.

"Well," she says, reaching forward, turning the monitor around so that both he and Arthur can see it. Those lines of text are still rushing by, but now more regularly, and each and every line finishes with the same word.

_DELETED_

"You'll have to learn how to do that all over again, won't you?"

She folds her arms and leans back, watching the expression on his face change. It's like the shadow of a cloud, drifting over open ground, or perhaps the silent, ponderous, beginnings of an avalance in the mountains. He glances from her to the monitor, and back again just as fast. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but closes it before any words come out. Then his eyes drift away from hers again, and he stops dead.

He's spotted it.

"What's this?" he says, taking a few precipitous steps toward the desk. He leans heavily on it with one hand and reaches out with the other, almost hissing as he pulls the memory stick from the computer. _Mass Fusion_ , he reads from the side of the device, as though it's any indication of what was stored on it. "What _is_ this?"

Grace just smiles.

He pushes her away from the computer, not roughly, barely even knocking her off balance.

On the other side of the desk, Arthur rises to his feet.

Shaun ignores them both, leaning over to frantically tap on the keyboard, searching through windows that appear and disappear faster than she'd expect a man as old as him to be able to manage.

"Good god," he says eventually, running his hand through his hair. "The data. It's... corrupt, it's deleting itself. What have you done. What have you _done_?"

Grace just laughs.

"You've tricked me," he says, turning on her, eyes wild. "You've betrayed me. After all I did for you, after all the chances I gave you. You were nothing, and you could have been _everything_."

"Everything to the Institute?" she says. "That sounds like nothing to me."

"My life's work," he says, hoarsely. "Does that not mean anything to you?"

"Not when it relies on theft," she replies. "Stolen lives, stolen minds. Cheap experiments on people who had no way of refusing to participate. It's wrong, Shaun. It can't continue."

"All I wanted was to make this world a better place."

"This isn't the right way to do it."

He takes a step toward her, and perhaps if he were anyone else she might flinch back. But he falters, his breathing ragged, staring almost vacantly around himself, as if confused. Perhaps she should feel guilty, concern for his well-being.

She feels nothing.

She leans in, in fact, forcing him to meet her eyes. "You took everything from me," she says, "Twice. I'm just repaying the favor."

He stares at her for a long moment, his bloodshot, yellowed eyes now fixed on hers. "Get out," he whispers, eventually. "Get out. Both of you."

  
Though her legs feel weak she'd rather be running than walking sedately to the exit. Her heart beats fast and shallow in her chest, her every breath shaky, her skin on fire with the tension of the moment. If a dark-coated operative jumps out into the hallway ahead of her, she has no way of protecting herself.

It doesn't matter, not really. The job is done. Whether she gets to walk out the door afterwards is mostly irrelevant.

Except... _he's_ waiting for her. He's been waiting for her since the day they met, and she didn't even know.

She concentrates on the regular tap of her shoes on the linoleum floor. Any echoes are swallowed up by the soundproofed walls, so she knows that the tread that follows her down the hallway belongs to Arthur. He doesn't speak, though, neither of them do, not until they're in the elevator and she's reaching out to hit the button that'll take her one step closer to freedom.

As she does he catches her hand. His skin is dry and hot and his touch is cautious, gentle even. The elevator doors slide shut, and he holds her hand for a moment longer, staring at it, before letting it go and lifting his eyes to hers. "Thank you," he says, gruffly, awkwardly. "I... I'm sorry. For not trusting you. I was wrong, I... I should have trusted you to have the Brotherhood's best interests at heart."

She shakes her head but he doesn't notice, he continues to talk, to thank her on behalf of the Brotherhood for performing a task that was the last-gasp effort from an organization they've just erased from the face of the Commonwealth.

"Stop."

He does.

"I didn't do it for the Brotherhood," she says. "I did it for me. I did it for Nate. I did it for Danse. I did it for everyone whose lives have been ruined by this fucking... shitshow."

His eyes had been softening until the mention of Danse's name; that's exactly why she'd used it.

"Where is he?" he asks.

"What do you care?"

"I do..." he stops, and sighs. "I trusted Danse with my life. He turned out to be one of _them_. What was I supposed to do?"

"Trust?" she says. "What do you know about trust?"

It's too big a question, one he can't answer now, one he may never be able to answer. He closes his mouth up tight and looks away.

"I've deleted all their records, or corrupted them beyond repair. But a hundred scientists aren't going to completely forget their research just because the data's gone. The Institute aren't finished. All the people here, all the technology. I mean... you could bring your Brotherhood operatives in here, make a clean sweep."

It's not a suggestion but he nods anyway, good plan, and it's so predictable she could almost cry if it weren't for the twin forces of anger and fear running through her.

"I have to stop that, too."

He looks back at her, the wary, nervy look returning to his face. "What?"

"I don't trust you, Arthur. I don't trust the Brotherhood. You've done nothing to earn it. You used me and tossed me aside when you thought I wasn't useful any more."

"That's not true," he says. "That's... not how it was. Please, I..."

His words are interrupted by the extinguishing of the elevator's lights.

And in the darkness, Grace smiles.

A cacophony of alarms begins to sound and the elevator begins a controlled descent. A set of emergency lights in the floor flicker on, an odd shade of orange, almost natural and flamelike compared to the bright fluorescent lighting that had lit the space before.

"Consider this the last act of the Railroad," she says.

His shoulders drop, dejected and defeated. She touches her hand to his cheek, a reflexive move that comes as a surprise even to her. But not half as much as she is when his hand finds the back of hers and presses it closer.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice little louder than a breath.

Grace leans in, presses her lips to his other cheek. He barely reacts, not to the kiss, and not to her removing her hand, not to her pulling away.

And not to her final words.

_Goodbye, Arthur._

The atrium is in chaos, scientists with arms full of papers and clipboards jostling each other on their way to the exit. She only lets herslf look back at him once; he still stands just outside the elevator, stunned and shocked and staring after her with naked hurt in his eyes.

She ignores the pang of regret and lets the crowd carry her away.


End file.
